Yoshi omoe ama no hirowanu utsusegai munashiki na o ba tatsubeshi ya kimi

English Translation

Then think of me — think
An empty shell the diving
women will not pick
up: should you let a name stand
that has nothing at all in it

Meaning

Then think of me, and be done with it. An empty shell the diving women will not stoop for — should you let a name stand with nothing at all inside it?

Commentary

85 The Empty Shell

When talk went round that the Consultant of Momozono was visiting Ukon, and it was not true, she sent him this poem. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
Ukon was a daughter of the Lesser Captain Suenawa and is known as a poet. She appears in five consecutive sections, the eighty-first through eighty-fifth; the poem of the eighty-fourth was taken into the Shūi-shū and into the Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets. The Consultant of Momozono held the office of Consultant and took his name from that residence.
Neither time nor place is given. All we are told is that the rumour spread and that it was false.
What prompted the poem was that rumour. It was sent to him.
The section ends with the poem; no reply and no later event is recorded.

The opening throws the matter open: then think of me, and have done. The first word carries a shrug — if that is how it is, so be it. Rather than deny the rumour she moves towards making it true.
An empty shell the diving women will not pick up is worthless for having nothing in it, and that emptiness is the rumour's.
What she calls an empty name is a reputation without substance. One word ties the hollow shell to the hollow talk.
The closing question is rhetorical: should such a name be allowed to stand? It should not. Neither reproach nor denial, the poem sets the emptiness in front of him and leaves the decision there.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other