Ōsawa no ike no mizukuki taenu tomo nanika uramimu saga no tsurasa wa

English Translation

Though the water-stems
of the Ōsawa pond break
why should I complain
of Saga's coldness, or yours —
such being your own nature

Meaning

Even if the water-weed stems of the Ōsawa pond should break off, why would I hold it against Saga for being cold — or against you, for being made as you are?

Commentary

8 The God Who Moves Each Night

While the Prince of the Ministry of Central Affairs was visiting the Lady of the Palace Guards, he sent word that the direction was closed to him and that he could not come that night, and she sent "Au koto no kata wa sanomi zo futagaramu hitoyo meguri no kimi to omoeba" in reply. The direction was closed all the same, but the prince came and stayed. Later, after a long silence, he sent word that he had been hunting at the Saga retreat and so had not written, and that she must have been anxious; and she sent "Ōsawa no ike no mizukuki taenu tomo nanika uramimu saga no tsurasa wa" in reply. His answer to it, perhaps because it fell short of the poem before, has been forgotten. That is the whole of the section.
The Lady of the Palace Guards appears repeatedly in this book, with poems in the tenth and seventy-first sections among others. Her title is that of a middle-ranking woman official at court. Of the Prince of the Ministry of Central Affairs the prose tells us nothing beyond the office his title names.
The setting is the period after this, when the prince had gone silent for a long while. The Saga retreat was a villa of Emperor Saga's, with the Ōsawa pond in its grounds; the site later became the Daikakuji temple.
What prompted the poem was the prince's excuse: that he had been hunting at Saga and so had not written, and that she must have been anxious. The place name Saga is in his message. The poem was sent as her reply.
The prince answered it, but the prose records that his answer, perhaps because it fell short of the poem before, has been forgotten. Judging a poem by whether anyone bothered to remember it is the note on which the section ends.

The word for the stems of the water plants is also the word for brushwork, that is, a letter in someone's hand, so that the weed breaking off and the letters stopping become one thing.
Saga is at once the place name and the word for a person's inborn nature.
On the surface she says she will not blame the place of Saga because the pond weed has broken off. Underneath she says she will not blame him for being cold because his letters have stopped. The grammar of the second line is concessive and hypothetical: even supposing it were so.
The question is rhetorical, so that in saying she will not complain she does exactly that. The last line is inverted, naming the object of the grievance only at the very end. Taking the place name he offered as an excuse and making it the hinge of her pun is the same manoeuvre as in "Au koto no kata wa sanomi zo futagaramu hitoyo meguri no kimi to omoeba".

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other