Sekikawa no iwama o kuguru mizu asami taenubeku nomi miyuru kokoro o

English Translation

The water that runs
between the rocks of Sekikawa
runs so shallow that
it looks like nothing so much
as a heart about to fail

Meaning

The water running between the rocks of Sekikawa is so shallow that it looks like nothing so much as a heart about to fail.

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.
What prompted the poem is his, "Asaku koso hito wa miruarame Sekikawa no tayuru kokoro wa araji to zo omou", with its claim that his heart will not fail.
He courted her still and she would not see him, and the section goes on to the poem of the moonlit night. This poem too was later included in the Shinchokusen-shū.

She opens from his own river, starting the poem where his ended — a properly matched reply.
The water between the rocks runs shallow, and the grammar marks that as the cause: she takes the shallowness he mentioned and makes it the actual depth of the stream.
What follows says it looks bound to fail, its confident supposition reinforced by a particle of limitation — that is all it looks like. He denied a heart that fails; she asserts one.
The closing breaks off without a verb. Reusing the other's river and the other's verb while reversing the conclusion is a pattern that recurs throughout the exchanges in this book.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other