Only the friend who
watched the moon with me last year
on this very night—
is he the one, back in the
capital, who thinks of me
- Meaning
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Only the friend who watched the moon with me on this same night last year—is it he, back in the capital, who thinks of me now?
- Commentary
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Volume Eight: The Skein of Thread
The tenth of the ninth month had passed. To the Taira, who felt like exiles watching the moon, the autumn wind went to the bone. In the evening wind stirring the reeds, the bed of a solitary traveler was cheerless and the single sleeve laid under one's head was often wet. It is said to be the same anywhere, but the loneliness of a sky one wanders under pressed hard on everyone.
On the thirteenth night of the ninth month the moon stood clear over Dazaifu too. But what rose in the minds of those who looked up was a night of admiring the moon happily in the capital. When the eyes clouded, the moon went dim. They composed poems that night, entrusting their feelings to the moonlight; but what consoled them was not the moon before them, it was a splendid past. Their poems could not hold back their longing for what was gone.
The first of them is this, by Tadanori.
The thirteenth night of the ninth month is a famous moon, second only to the fifteenth of the eighth. Because it falls once a year, one can recall the same night of the year before exactly. The phrase "this night last year" is possible only because of that coincidence in the calendar.
Last year he watched the moon with friends in the capital; this year he watches alone in the west. Since the same moon on the same night is being seen from two places, perhaps the other is thinking of him too. It is a poem of the type that uses the moon to test whether a distant person's mind still turns one's way.
But nomi—"only"—does the work. No one else, only the friend of that night. There are many people in the capital, and almost none of them remember the Taira now; Kikuchi and the warriors of Kyushu have gone over. The restriction is that of a man who knows he is being forgotten.
Tadanori is the man who entrusted his poems to Shunzei in Volume Seven and who dies in Volume Nine. The poem of the member of the house who lived most for poetry stands first of the three.
tsuki wo mishi……who watched the moon with me.
kozo no koyoi……this same night a year ago; the thirteenth of the ninth month.
tomo nomi ya……only that friend?
omoiizuran……is he remembering?
kugatsu jūsan'ya……the harvest moon of the ninth month, second of the two great moon nights.
haisho……a place of exile.
ogi……tall reeds by water, a standard image of the autumn wind.
katashiku sode……sleeping alone on one's own sleeve.
Tadanori……Taira no Tadanori, brother of Kiyomori and a noted poet.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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