What use to me now
is a robe you take off and
give me? I think of
it only as a keepsake
of a day that has no next
- Meaning
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What use to me now is a robe you take off and give me, when I think of it as the keepsake of a day that has no tomorrow?
- Commentary
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Volume Eleven: The Beheading of Shigehira
This is his wife's reply.
Afterward Shigehira said: if there is any bond between us we shall meet again in the life to come; pray hard that we may be born on the same lotus. The day is going; it is unkind to keep them waiting. She begged him to stay a little longer. No, he said—it is the same however long I stay, and only makes the parting worse; consider what I feel. I cannot escape it, and the longer I linger the more disordered my mind becomes. We shall meet again in the next life. He said it firmly, shook off her hands, and went out through the gate; and once outside he could see nothing at all for the blur in front of him.
He was beheaded by the Kizu River. His wife took the body, buried it at Hino, and in time took vows to pray for him.
Nani ka sen means what would it be for; nothing. She refuses the keepsake on the spot.
The reason comes in the lower verse: because she takes it as the keepsake of a day that has no tomorrow. A keepsake is a thing the survivor keeps for a long time. She says today is the last—that is, she means to follow him. She has no use for a keepsake because there will be no one to keep it.
In Volume Ten, when Shigehira wrote that his meeting and his life might both end that night, the palace lady answered that she would vanish before he did. The identical figure returns here, this time with his wife. Twice in his life Shigehira sent a poem of farewell, and twice he was answered that the other would die first.
nugikauru……taken off and exchanged.
nani ka sen……what would be the use? none.
kyō wo kagiri……today being the last.
katami……a keepsake left behind.
hitotsu hachisu……to be born on the same lotus; to share the Pure Land.
Kizugawa……the river near Nara where he was executed.
Hino……the place in Yamashiro where his wife lived.
bodai wo tomurau……to pray for the repose of the dead.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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