Asaku koso hito wa miruarame Sekikawa no tayuru kokoro wa araji to zo omou

English Translation

Shallow, no doubt, is
how it looks to other eyes
but like Sekikawa's
water, this heart of mine will
not run dry — so I believe

Meaning

Shallow, no doubt, is how it looks to others. But like the water of Sekikawa, this heart of mine will not run dry — so I believe.

Commentary

106 The Reed Leaves

The late Prince of the Ministry of Military Affairs had courted this daughter of Taira no Nakaki before the affair recorded earlier, and composed "Ogi no ha no soyogu goto ni zo uramitsuru kaze ni utsurite tsuraki kokoro o". The same prince also composed "Asaku koso hito wa miruarame Sekikawa no tayuru kokoro wa araji to zo omou", and her reply was "Sekikawa no iwama o kuguru mizu asami taenubeku nomi miyuru kokoro o". Since for all his suit she would not see him, he came again on a bright moonlit night and composed "Yonayona ni izu to mishikado hakanakute irinishi tsuki to iite yaminamu". Then one time he dropped a fan, and picking it up she saw written on it, in a hand she did not know, "Wasuraruru mi wa warekara no ayamachi ni nashite dani koso kimi o uramine"; so she wrote beside it "Yuyushiku mo omooyuru kana hitogoto ni utomarenikeru yo ni koso arikere" and sent it to him. On another occasion she composed "Wasuraruru Tokiwa no yama no ne o zo naku akino no mushi no koe ni midarete", and his reply was "Naku naredo obotsukanaku zo omooyuru koe kiku koto no ima wa nakereba". And when the same prince composed "Kumoi nite yo o furu koro wa samidare no ame no shita ni zo ikeru kai naki", her answer was "Fureba koso koe mo kumoi ni kikoekeme itodo harukeki kokochi nomi shite". That is the whole of the section.
The Prince of the Ministry of Military Affairs headed that ministry. Taira no Nakaki served as Assistant Governor of Ōmi; the hundred and fifth section tells of his daughter and the priest Jōzō, and the fifty-seventh of her fallen circumstances. The events of this section fall before those of the hundred and fifth.
The setting is again the period of his suit.
The prose records nothing further of what prompted it, saying only that he composed this as well.
She answered with a poem of her own, and the section continues. This poem was later included in the Shinchokusen-shū.

The opening grants that others take it for shallow, an emphatic construction pressing that outside view.
Sekikawa, the river at the barrier, leads into the verb that follows; a river runs without stopping, and the association does the work.
What he denies is a heart that runs dry, in the grammar of what will not be.
The closing, with an emphatic particle governing the verb, pushes the judgement forward: this is what he believes. However shallow it may look, his own feeling will not fail. The pairing of shallow and deep is what her reply takes up.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other