Kakiho naru kimi ga asagao mite shi kana kaerite nochi wa mono ya omou to

English Translation

I should like to see
your morning face, as one sees
the morning glory
at the hedge — to see whether
you brood, once you have gone home

Meaning

I should like to see your morning face, the way one sees the morning glory at the hedge — to see whether you really brood once you have gone home.

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 early period of his visits.
What prompted the poem is his, "Ikani shite ware wa kienamu shiratsuyu no kaerite nochi no mono wa omowaji", about the brooding that follows going home.
A further exchange follows in the same section.

The word for the morning glory at the hedge is also the words for a face in the morning, so that the flower's name lends itself to naming his face.
What follows is a wish of her own: that she might see it.
Where he said he would not brood after going home, she rearranges the same words to ask whether he really does. He declared he would not; she would like to check.
The morning glory opens at dawn and is shut by noon, and had long been paired with dew in poetry. He offered dew; she takes a flower from the same morning. Doubting what the other has just claimed is a note that recurs in the women's poems in this book.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other