Yo o waburu namida nagarete hayaku tomo ama no kawa ni wa sa ya wa narubeki

English Translation

Though the tears that come
of finding the world hard flow
fast, and faster still
should they turn so quickly to
a river of heaven — a nun

Meaning

Though the tears that come of finding the world hard should flow fast and faster still, should they turn so quickly into a river of heaven — into a nun?

Commentary

103 The River of Heaven

At the height of his career as a lover, Heichū went to the market, for in those days people of rank went to the market to look for lovers. Women in the empress's service were there, and he pressed his suit ardently. When he wrote to them, they had someone ask which of the several women in the carriage his letter was meant for, and he answered with "Momoshiki no tamoto no kazu wa mishikadomo wakite omoi no iro zo koishiki". She was the daughter of the Governor of Musashi, and had been wearing a robe of deep scarlet silk. She answered, and they became lovers. But after their one night together no word came from him, that morning or that evening; five and six days passed, and she wept and would not eat, and at last cut off her long hair with her own hands and became a nun. On his side, his superior had carried him off the very next morning, then came attendance on the retired emperor at the Ōi river, and then a closed direction that obliged him to lodge elsewhere. He was on the point of writing at last when a servant of her house arrived with a letter wrapping a lock of cut hair, on which was written "Ama no kawa sora naru mono to kikishikado waga me no mae no namida narikeri". Everything went dark before him; he answered with "Yo o waburu namida nagarete hayaku tomo ama no kawa ni wa sa ya wa narubeki" and went to her himself. She had shut herself in the storeroom, and though he begged to hear her voice she did not answer. He made of this, we are told, the most extraordinary thing in the world. That is the whole of the section.
Heichū is Taira no Sadafun, known as a great lover, who also appears in the forty-sixth and sixty-fourth sections. The woman was a daughter of the Governor of Musashi and served the empress. The storeroom was a windowless inner room with a door and a light-opening.
The setting is his receiving her letter and the lock of hair.
What prompted the poem is hers, "Ama no kawa sora naru mono to kikishikado waga me no mae no namida narikeri", and what was folded inside it.
He sent this reply, adding that he was too astonished to speak and would come himself, and went to her. She had shut herself in the storeroom and would not answer. The section closes there.

The opening names finding the world hard to bear — the grief that drove her to renounce it.
What follows takes her tears, which she had made a river, and speaks of the speed of the current.
The word for the river in the fourth line carries her own pun on the word for a nun, and the question is rhetorical: should it come to that so soon? It should not.
However fast the tears run, becoming a nun is too quick. Taking the other's pun and turning its sense back is a pattern that recurs throughout the exchanges in this book. After this reply, however, she stayed in the storeroom and gave no answer.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other