Wasuraruru mi wa warekara no ayamachi ni nashite dani koso kimi o uramine

English Translation

That I am the one
forgotten — if I can call
it my own doing
my own fault, then at least I
need not hold it against you

Meaning

That I am the one forgotten — if I can call it my own doing, my own fault, then at least I need not hold it against you.

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 her picking up a fan the prince had dropped and looking at it.
The prose records nothing of what prompted the poem. It was written on the fan, in a hand, the prose says, that she did not know.
She wrote her own poem beside it and sent it to him. Another woman's poem becomes the premise of her own.

The opening names herself as the one forgotten, the passive marking her position.
The second line means of one's own doing, through one's own fault; the word is also the name of a small creature that lives on seaweed, and it serves to name her own inadequacy.
What follows turns that into her own fault, with a particle meaning at least, and an emphatic construction governing the verb that ends the poem.
The closing says she need not resent him: by taking the blame she spares him. It is the poem of a woman who has been forgotten and keeps her grievance out of sight — and it is this poem on a fan that draws out the next.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other