Ajiro yori hoka ni wa hio no yoru mono ka shirazu wa Uji no hito ni toe kashi

English Translation

Do the icefish come
to anywhere but the weir
If you do not know
then go and ask the people
of Uji — ask them yourself

Meaning

Do the icefish come anywhere but to the weir? If you do not know, go and ask the people of Uji.

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 same period after his visits had ceased.
What prompted the poem is hers, "Ikade nao ajiro no hio ni koto towamu nani ni yorite ka ware o towanu to", with its wish to question the fish.
After this reply the section turns back to the days when he was still coming.

The opening question is rhetorical: do the fish come anywhere but the weir? They do not.
Taking up her wish to question the icefish, he answers from the side of the fish's habits: they go where they go, and that is all. It serves equally as an account of why he does not come.
What follows sends her to the people of Uji if she does not know, with a final particle that presses the point home. The name of the place is said to carry the sound of the word for the inner palace.
Rather than answer her himself he tells her to ask elsewhere, and the effect is dismissive — the flat tone proper to the end of an affair.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other