Shine tote ya tori mo aezu wa yarawaruru ito ikigataki kokochi koso sure

English Translation

Do you mean me to
die, then? Driven off before
I can gather my-
self — I can hardly go, hard-
ly live, feeling as I do

Meaning

Do you mean me to die? Driven off before I can so much as gather myself — I can hardly go, and hardly live, feeling as I do.

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 is the moment he finally reached her.
What prompted the poem was being coldly told to go home for that day.
Her reply was said to have been a good one, the prose says, but it is not known. The section goes on from here to the night of snow.

The opening asks whether she means him to die, and putting it first sets the pitch of everything that follows.
The second line means: without a moment to gather anything, before one can turn round. He is being sent off the instant he arrives.
The verb that follows is in the passive: he is the one being driven out, with no say in it.
The word in the last line carries both living and going, so that being scarcely able to leave and being scarcely able to live are one phrase, with an emphatic particle pressing the feeling home. Of the four poems in this section it is the most vehement.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other