Ikade nao ajiro no hio ni koto towamu nani ni yorite ka ware o towanu to

English Translation

Somehow, even now
I would put the question to
the icefish held at
the weir: on what account is
it that he does not come here

Meaning

Somehow, even now, I would put the question to the icefish held at the weir: on what account does he not come to me?

Commentary

89 The Icefish at the Weir

While a man who held the post of Master of the Right Horse Bureau was visiting a woman known as the Lady of Shuri, he sent word that the direction was closed to him and he could not come, and she composed "Kore naranu koto o mo ōku tagaureba uramimu kata mo naki zo wabishiki". Later, when he had stopped coming altogether, she composed "Ikade nao ajiro no hio ni koto towamu nani ni yorite ka ware o towanu to", and his reply was "Ajiro yori hoka ni wa hio no yoru mono ka shirazu wa Uji no hito ni toe kashi". From the days when he was still visiting there is a poem she made at an early morning parting, "Akenu tote isogi mo zo suru Ōsaka no kiri tachinu tomo hito ni kikasu na", and one he made when he first began coming, "Ikani shite ware wa kienamu shiratsuyu no kaerite nochi no mono wa omowaji"; her reply to it was "Kakiho naru kimi ga asagao mite shi kana kaerite nochi wa mono ya omou to". After a night together, on going home, he composed "Kokoro o shi kimi ni todomete kinishikaba mono omou koto wa ware ni ya aruramu", and the Lady of Shuri answered with "Tamashii wa okashiki koto mo nakarikeri yorozu no mono wa kara ni zo arikeru". That is the whole of the section.
The Lady of Shuri takes her name from that office. The Master of the Right Horse Bureau headed the office responsible for horses. This section holds eight poems and is not arranged in order of time: the poems from after his visits ceased come first, and the section then turns back to the days when he was still coming.
The setting is the period after his visits had ceased.
What prompted the poem was that ceasing.
He answered with a poem of his own, and the section then turns back to the days when he was still coming. This poem was later included in the Shūi-shū.

The opening means: somehow, in spite of everything. The wish to know is carried by the first line.
The weir is a barrier of bamboo and wood set across a river to take fish; the icefish is the young sweetfish, and the weirs of the Uji river were famous.
She would put her question to those fish. A weir is a device that gathers what comes to it and separates what comes from what does not, and she asks a fish why a man does not come.
The verb in the last line covers both asking and visiting, so that questioning the fish and his failure to visit are held in one word. The poem appears in the Shūi-shū with a headnote, and is known as a difficult one.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other