Though I am a man
whose ill name goes streaming down
the river of tears,
I would ask for one more time,
one shallows where we might meet
- Meaning
-
Though I am one whose ill name goes streaming down the river of tears, I would ask for one more meeting, only one.
- Commentary
-
Volume Ten: The Lady of the Palace
Taira no Shigehira, taken alive at Ichi-no-tani, was brought back to the capital and paraded through the streets, then lodged at Hachijō-Horikawa.
There was a lady of the palace with whom he had long had an understanding. Unable to put her out of mind, he asked one of his guards, Tomotoki, to carry a letter.
Tomotoki waited by the back of her chamber until the night had emptied the corridors, and heard the voice of the very woman he had come for. Of all the men there are, she was saying, that it should be the Third-Rank Captain alone who is taken alive and led through the streets is too cruel; people say it is retribution for burning Nara, but he did not set the fires with his own hand, it was done because he could not help it, and only the guilt has been laid on him—poor man. She was weeping as she spoke, and Tomotoki felt his own eyes sting.
When he spoke, a voice asked what he wanted. A letter from the Third-Rank Captain, he said quietly—and she came tumbling out. A woman who was shy even of being seen, she was past caring. Where is it, where is the letter, she said, and opened it with her own hands and read it hungrily. It set out at length what had happened since his capture in the west and what lay ahead of him, and at the end stood this poem.
Namidagawa, the river of tears, introduces "to stream." To let one's ill name stream is to have it spread through the world. The se of ōse belongs to rivers too, so that river, streaming, and shallows compose a single stretch of water.
The phrase "letting an ill name stream" is the same one Tashi used in Volume One, lamenting a position without precedent. Here it belongs to a man carrying the guilt of burning Nara. The same words return with the nature of the disgrace altered.
And ima hitotabi—only once more—is the whole of the poem. He does not ask to live, or to be pardoned. He asks for one meeting, and the modesty of the request measures how far gone things are.
namidagawa……a river made of tears.
uki na……an ill name, a disgraceful reputation.
nagasu……to let flow; belonging to the river imagery.
ima hitotabi……one more time.
ōse……a meeting; se, a shallows, belongs to rivers.
mogana……would that there were.
Shigehira……fifth son of Kiyomori, who burned Nara in Volume Five.
Tomotoki……a warrior connected with Shigehira.
tsubone……a room assigned to a lady at court.
Hachijō-Horikawa……where Shigehira was lodged.
- Source
-
Heike Monogatari
- Other
-