Since all that is past
has turned into a dream now,
this life behind a
brushwood door will not, either,
be a long while in lasting
- Meaning
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Since all that is past has turned into a dream, this life behind a brushwood door will not last long either.
- Commentary
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The Initiates' Chapter: The Death of the Empress
This is the second of the two poems she wrote on the sliding door after seeing the cloistered emperor go.
Inishie is the days of splendor. They have become a dream—and a dream leaves nothing behind once one wakes.
She extends the reasoning to the present: this life behind a brushwood door will vanish in the same way. Since the splendor has gone, so will its opposite. Impermanence does not single out grandeur for destruction.
Hisashikaraji na is "it will not be long." It can be read as saying that her own death is near, and in fact she takes to her bed shortly afterward.
Some read amido as also carrying hisashi, the eaves: a hut with a woven door has no eaves, and the scene and the sense of "not long" are laid over each other. The wordplay is strained, but it does convey that the poem was written looking at the poor door in front of her.
The first verse speaks of a heart that longs for the past; this one says that both past and present are dreams. Having said that she longs, she ends by calling what she longs for, and herself as well, a dream. Together the two make a single statement.
inishie……the past.
yume ni narinishi……has become a dream.
koto nareba……since it is so.
shiba no amido……a rough door woven of brushwood.
hisashikaraji na……it will not last long.
mujō……impermanence.
io……a hut of grass and branches.
jukkai……a statement of what one feels.
- Source
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Heike Monogatari
- Other
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