Mikari suru Kurikomayama no shika yori mo hitori nuru mi zo wabishikarikeru

English Translation

More wretched even
than the deer of Kurikoma
where the hunt goes out
is this body of mine, that
lies down to sleep by itself

Meaning

More wretched even than the deer of Kurikoma, where the hunt goes out, is this body of mine that lies down to sleep alone.

Commentary

140 Dust on the Grass Pillow

While the late Prince of the Ministry of Military Affairs was visiting the daughter of the Major Counsellor Noboru, he once had a temporary bed made up in the aisle room rather than in the usual place, and spent a night there and went home. He did not come again for some time, and then sent to ask whether the bed laid in the aisle room was still there or had been put away; and her answer was "Shikikaezu arishi nagara ni kusamakura chiri nomi zo iru harau hito nami". His reply was "Kusamakura chiri harai ni wa karakoromo tamoto yutaka ni tatsu o mate kashi", and she answered again with "Karakoromo tatsu o matsu ma no hodo koso wa waga shikitae no chiri mo tsumorame", at which he came to her. On another occasion, when he sent word that he was going hunting at Uji, her answer was "Mikari suru Kurikomayama no shika yori mo hitori nuru mi zo wabishikarikeru". That is the whole of the section.
The Prince of the Ministry of Military Affairs appears in the ninetieth, hundred and sixth, hundred and seventh, hundred and thirty-seventh and hundred and thirty-ninth sections. The Major Counsellor Noboru is Minamoto no Noboru, who held that office; the poet is his daughter. The aisle room ran around the outside of the main hall.
The setting is the moment he sent word that he was going hunting at Uji.
What prompted the poem was that message. It is her reply.
The section closes with it: three poems about the bed in the aisle room, and then this answer to the news of a hunt.

The deer of Kurikoma are the quarry on ground known for hunting; Ukon uses the same mountain in her poem about the pheasant in the eighty-second section.
A deer in the hunt is an animal with its life in danger, and the lower verse begins by setting that beside her.
What follows is her own body, lying down alone, with an emphatic particle governing the verb that ends the poem.
The closing marks the recognition of her wretchedness. She is worse off, she says, than an animal being hunted. Answering news of a hunt by producing its quarry and ranking herself above it, she keeps him from going without once telling him not to.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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