The hope that somehow
it might yet come right, and the
crying of insects—
both have worn themselves out now
here at the close of autumn
- Meaning
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The hope that somehow it might yet come right, and the crying of the insects—both have worn themselves out now, here at the close of autumn.
- Commentary
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Volume Eight: The Skein of Thread
Having heard the voice from the sanctuary at Usa saying that against the world's grief even gods can do nothing, Munemori woke with a start and straightened himself. The voice had spoken once. His heart would not quiet, and something ominous passed through him. Considering what it meant, his face darkened: against the state of this world the power of gods does not reach.
It was then that he murmured this poem, faintly. The text says he spoke it as an old poem, under his breath—so it is not his own composition but a quotation.
He told no one of the dream. The vigil ended without incident, and as he rode back toward Dazaifu with a party in good spirits, there was a desolate smile on his face.
Saritomo is the word for "even so, still"—the feeling that things may yet come right. Losses had piled up, and the one thing the head of the house could not let go of was that word.
The poem sets that hope beside the crying of insects. As autumn deepens the insects fall silent; in the same way the hope is going out. Something formless is laid against a sound that thins measurably with the season. That is the construction.
What matters is that he speaks a ready-made poem. Immediately after being told by a god that prayer is useless, what comes to his lips is not his own language but someone else's, made long ago. It is the same as in Volume Six, where Emperor Takakura entrusted his feeling to an old poem: when there are no words of one's own to be had, an old poem arrives. But there it was to convey love, and here it is to confirm despair.
Munemori is repeatedly drawn as a mediocre man—the affair of the horse in Volume Four, where he humiliated Nakatsuna and brought on the rising of Yorimasa and his son, is the type of it. And at the moment when his house's fate is announced to him, he murmurs not his own verse but an old one. That he is never given the power to compose is part of how the character is made.
saritomo……even so, surely still.
omou kokoro……the feeling that it may be so.
mushi no ne……the crying of autumn insects.
yowarihatenuru……worn out entirely.
aki no kure……the end of autumn.
furu-uta……an old poem, by someone of former times.
sanrō……to seclude oneself in a shrine in prayer.
saki no naidaijin……Munemori's title; he had resigned as Inner Minister before the flight.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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