Naku naredo obotsukanaku zo omooyuru koe kiku koto no ima wa nakereba

English Translation

You weep, so I hear
and yet it comes to me as
something uncertain
for there is no hearing of
that voice for me any more

Meaning

You weep, so I hear; and yet it reaches me as something uncertain, for I no longer hear that voice at all.

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 the same autumn, when her poem reached him.
What prompted it is hers, "Wasuraruru Tokiwa no yama no ne o zo naku akino no mushi no koe ni midarete", telling him that she weeps.
A further exchange follows in the same section.

The opening reports her weeping as hearsay; the grammar marks it as something told him rather than seen.
What follows says it strikes him as uncertain, the word meaning indistinct or not to be relied on, with an emphatic particle governing the verb.
The closing gives the reason: he no longer hears that voice at all. They have not met for a long while, and the weeping she describes has never reached his ears.
She wrote of crying among the insects; he answers that he has not heard her. Rather than meet the complaint he says there is no way to verify it, and the coolness of that is the note of the reply.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other