Ise no umi no chihiro no hama ni hirou tomo ima wa kainaku omooyuru kana

English Translation

Though I were to search
the thousand-fathom shore of
the sea at Ise
and pick up shells there — it would
be to no purpose, not now

Meaning

Though I were to search the wide shore of the sea at Ise and gather shells there, it would be to no purpose now.

Commentary

93 The Wide Shore of Ise

The same Provisional Middle Counsellor had long been in love with the princess who became High Priestess. When at last they were to meet, that very day or the next, she was appointed High Priestess of Ise and the meeting became impossible. Feeling that it was beyond words to regret, he composed this poem and sent it to her. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The Provisional Middle Counsellor appears in the ninety-second section, where three poems trace his courtship of the Minister of the Left's daughter. The princess was appointed High Priestess of the Ise shrine, an office held by unmarried imperial princesses, whose tenure cut them off from the ordinary world.
The setting is the time of her appointment, which came just as they were on the point of meeting.
What prompted the poem was that appointment. It was sent to her.
The section ends with the poem; no reply and no later event is recorded. It was later included in the Gosen-shū.

The sea at Ise is the place she is bound for — the very cause of their separation becomes the setting of the poem.
The word in the second line means a thousand fathoms, and stands for whatever is very deep or very wide; it opens out a great stretch of shore.
He speaks of picking things up without saying what. What one picks up on a shore is shells, and the word that follows supplies it.
That word means both a shell and any use or purpose, so that gathering shells to no purpose and there being no purpose now are the same phrase. A man gathering shells on an endless beach stands for a man still in love with a woman who has become a priestess.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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