Wasuraruru Tokiwa no yama no ne o zo naku akino no mushi no koe ni midarete

English Translation

Forgotten, I cry
aloud on Tokiwa, the
mountain that never
turns, my voice confounded with
the autumn field's insects' voices

Meaning

Forgotten, I cry aloud on Tokiwa, the mountain that never turns colour, my voice confounded with the insects of the autumn field.

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 season is autumn, as the insects of the autumn field tell us.
The prose records nothing of what prompted it, saying only that on another occasion she composed this.
He answered with a poem of his own, and the section continues.

The first word puts her in the passive: she is the one forgotten.
Tokiwa is the evergreen mountain, and its name means what never changes. Trees that do not turn in autumn stand for a woman no longer looked at, and the word for autumn is also the word for being tired of someone.
What follows is crying aloud, with an emphatic particle governing the verb.
The closing has her voice mingling with the insects of the autumn field, which sing in that season. Evergreen mountain, autumn field and insect voices are laid one on another, and through them she states her own case.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other