How I long for it,
the old city where I lived—
and the god himself
must know that longing, must know
it from his own long-ago
- Meaning
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How I long for the old city where I lived—and the god himself must know that longing, from his own long ago.
- Commentary
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Volume Eight: Natora
The Taira went west. On the seventeenth they reached Dazaifu in Mikasa district, Chikuzen. As they drew breath there, Kikuchi Jirō Takanao, who had come with them from the capital, asked leave to go ahead and open the barrier at Ōtsuyama on the Higo border to receive them, and rode off alone.
Once home, he shut himself in his own fortress and made no preparations, nor did he bring men to hold Dazaifu. Repeated messengers got no answer, and his defection was plain. The warriors of the rest of Kyushu likewise sent handsome replies—that they were the Taira's men and resolved to come for the emperor's sake—and not one appeared at Dazaifu. Only Ōkura Tanenao of Iwato was in attendance. Men who had taken favors from the Taira at their height had nothing for the Taira in decline.
On the eighteenth they went to worship at Anraku-ji, and through the night composed poems and linked verse in honor of the god. Among them the Middle Captain Shigehira composed this. They had been consoling themselves a little with worship and verse in the midst of ruin, when this poem struck them all to the heart. They came back to their situation, wept for their misfortune, and were seized again by longing for home.
Anraku-ji enshrines Sugawara no Michizane, who was also driven from the capital, came down to this place, and died longing for home. Before that god Shigehira says that the god knows what longing for the capital is.
Omoishiru is to know a thing in one's own body. That a god should "know" in that sense would not ordinarily work, and works here only because of Michizane. It is not a petition but a request for fellow feeling: he does not ask the god for anything, he says to the god, it was so for you too.
Afterward the Taira go to Usa, and there Munemori receives the oracle that against the world's grief even gods can do nothing. Shigehira's appeal for fellow feeling and Munemori's dream of a god turning away stand side by side across two chapters: what the Taira offered the gods in Kyushu, and what the gods gave back.
Shigehira is taken alive in Volume Nine, carried east in Volume Ten, and beheaded at Nara in Volume Eleven. The man who is given the harshest end of all, as the burner of the southern capital, composes here a quiet poem of homesickness.
suminareshi……where one has grown used to living.
furuki miyako……the old capital; Kyoto.
koishisa……the ache of longing.
kami……the god of Anraku-ji, Sugawara no Michizane.
omoishiruran……must know it in his own body.
Anraku-ji……the Dazaifu Tenmangū, where Michizane is enshrined.
Shigehira……Taira no Shigehira, fifth son of Kiyomori, commander at the burning of Nara.
Kikuchi Jirō Takanao……a warrior of Higo who deserted the Taira.
Ōkura Tanenao……a warrior of Iwato who stayed with them.
renga……linked verse, composed in alternating parts by different people.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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