Koishisa ni shinuru inochi o omoiidete tou hito araba nashi to kotaeyo

English Translation

If anyone comes
remembering the life that
longing put an end
to, and asks after me, then
tell them: she is here no more

Meaning

If anyone comes remembering the life that longing put an end to, and asks after me, tell them she is here no more.

Commentary

104 If We Vanish, Together

A woman sent the Lesser Captain Fujiwara no Shigemoto "Koishisa ni shinuru inochi o omoiidete tou hito araba nashi to kotaeyo", and his reply was "Kara ni dani ware kitarite e tsuyu no mi no kieba tomo ni to chigiriokiteki". That is the whole of the section.
Fujiwara no Shigemoto held the rank of Lesser Captain. Of the woman the prose tells us nothing.
Neither time nor place is given. All we are told is that a woman sent the poem to the Lesser Captain.
The prose records nothing of what prompted it.
He answered with a poem of his own, and the exchange closes the section. This poem was later included in the Shinkokin-shū.

The opening names a life ended by longing — dying of love being a common way of speaking at the time.
What follows sets up a scene after her death, in which someone remembers her.
The conditional in the third line leaves it open whether anyone will come asking at all.
The closing is an imperative: tell them she is gone. She does not speak for herself but leaves a message with another, the same construction as the poem in the thirty-eighth section, where one who is leaving entrusts word to one who stays.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other