Mubatama no waga kurokami wa Shirakawa no mizu wa kumu made narinikeru kana

English Translation

This black hair of mine
black as the lily's berry
has come to this now:
drawing water at Shirakawa
white river, and toothless too

Meaning

This black hair of mine, black as the lily's berry, has come to this: drawing water at the White River, and my teeth gone with it.

Commentary

126 Until I Draw Water at Shirakawa

The Lady of Higaki, a woman of pleasure living in Tsukushi, was accomplished and had made her way well in the world. She had lived so for many years; but she was caught up in the Sumitomo rising, her house was burnt, her goods were all taken, and she fell into wretched circumstances. Not knowing this, Ono no Yoshifuru, who had been appointed to put down the rising, looked for the place where she had lived, asking how he might meet the Lady of Higaki and where she lived; and those with him said she had lived thereabouts. While he was saying how sorry he was and wondering what had become of her in such a disturbance, and that he should like to call on her, a white-haired old woman went past drawing water and entered a shabby house. Someone said that this was the Lady of Higaki. He was much distressed and sent for her, but she was too ashamed to come out, and sent only this poem. He was moved, and took off the under-robe he was wearing and gave it to her.
The Lady of Higaki was a woman of pleasure living in Tsukushi, accomplished and worldly-wise. She appears in three consecutive sections, the hundred and twenty-sixth through hundred and twenty-eighth. Ono no Yoshifuru appears in the fourth section as the Governor-General of the West, and led the force against Sumitomo. The rising is that of Fujiwara no Sumitomo, in the Tengyō years.
The setting is Tsukushi after the rising, with the Lady stripped of house and goods.
What prompted the poem was that, being sent for, she was too ashamed to appear. The poem went instead of her.
Yoshifuru was moved and gave her the robe off his back. The section closes on that sentence. The poem was later included in the Gosen-shū.

The first line is a fixed epithet for blackness, taken from the black berry of the lily, and it introduces the blackness of her hair.
Her black hair is set down, and the lower verse turns it white.
The White River is a river in Tsukushi, and the word for white in its name answers the black of the hair. The change of colour is accomplished by a place name.
The closing phrase means both drawing water and the state of an old person's mouth when the teeth have gone, so that the fall to water-carrying and the coming of age are one word. Black hair, white river and drawing water run in a single line of colour and action, and through them she states her ruin and her age. Unable to come out when sent for, she conveys her whole condition in one poem.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other