Sore o dani omou koto tote waga yado o miki to na iiso hito no kikaku ni

English Translation

If you think of me
at all, then let it be this
do not say you saw
my house, do not say it — for
there are people who will hear

Meaning

If you feel anything for me, let it be this much: do not say that you saw my house. There are people who will hear.

Commentary

26 Do Not Say You Saw My House

The Katsura Princess had been meeting, in the greatest secrecy, a man she should not have met. This is the poem she sent him. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The Katsura Princess lived at Katsura and appears in the twentieth section, longing for the late Prince of the Ministry of Ceremonial. Of the man the prose tells us only that he was someone she should not have met.
The setting is the aftermath of a secret meeting. Because they met in hiding, she stands in fear of its becoming known.
What prompted the poem was that meeting itself. It was sent to the man she had met.
The section ends with the poem; no reply from him is recorded. The poem was later included in the Kokin-shū.

The first line means: if only this much — an opening that asks for very little.
The phrase that follows makes the silence itself the proof of feeling: let holding your tongue be what you do for me.
The prohibition in the middle asks him not to say that he saw her house. She does not ask him to deny the meeting; she stops a step short of it, at the house.
The last line gives the reason: there are people who will hear. Nothing is said of love; the poem is nothing but a request for silence, and the position of a woman of rank meeting in secret is the whole of its content.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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