Nageki nomi shigeki miyama no hototogisu kogakure ite mo ne o nomi zo naku

English Translation

The cuckoo in the
deep hills, where nothing grows thick
but grief, though hidden
away among the branches
does nothing but raise its voice

Meaning

The cuckoo in the deep hills, where nothing grows thick but grief — hidden among the branches, it does nothing but raise its voice.

Commentary

65 Do You Mean Me to Die

The fifth son of the Nan'in house was Governor of Mikawa. He fell in love with the Lady of Iyo, who lived in the Jōkyōden. When he sent word that he wished to visit, she replied that she was about to go up to the palace to wait on the Lady of the Bedchamber, and he sent "Tamadare no uchi to kakuru wa itodoshiku kage o miseji to omou narikeri". He also composed "Nageki nomi shigeki miyama no hototogisu kogakure ite mo ne o nomi zo naku". When at last he reached her, he was coldly told to go home for that day, and composed "Shine tote ya tori mo aezu wa yarawaruru ito ikigataki kokochi koso sure". Her reply to this was said to have been a good one, but it is not known. Again, on a snowy night, she talked with him and then, saying the night was late, sent him off; he had gone part of the way when the snow grew too heavy to go on, and he came back to find the door barred against him, and stayed where he was, composing "Ware wa sa wa yuki furu sora ni kiene to ya tachikaeredomo akenu itado wa". The woman said afterwards that since he composed poems like that and spoke with such feeling, she had wondered what to do and had looked through the door — but his face, after all, would not do. That is the whole of the section.
The fifth son of the Nan'in house served as Governor of Mikawa, the head of that province's administration. The Jōkyōden was one of the halls of the women's quarters, ranked next after Kokiden. The Lady of Iyo lived there.
The setting follows directly on the previous poem, sent after it. The cuckoo tells us it is summer.
What prompted it was the same refusal.
Afterwards he reached her at last — and was told to go home.

The word for grief in the first line also carries the sound of the word for wood thrown down, so that grief growing thick and a mountain thick with trees are held together.
The cuckoo is a bird of summer whose call had long been in poetry, and it is often a bird that calls unseen.
The third line means: hidden among the branches. The bird cannot be seen and only its voice carries.
The closing says it does nothing but raise its voice, with a particle of limitation and an emphatic particle reinforcing each other: crying is all it can do. A man who cannot reach the woman and can send only his voice is laid directly over the hidden bird.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other