Asamidori kai aru haru ni ainureba kasumi naranedo tachinoborikeri

English Translation

Pale green, and worth the
meeting — this spring I have met
and though I am not
the haze itself, I too have
risen, and stand here at last

Meaning

Pale green, and worth the meeting — this spring I have met; and though I am not the haze, I too have risen and stand here.

Commentary

146 A Spring Worth Meeting

When the retired Emperor Uda was staying at the Torikai palace there was music and poetry as usual. He asked whether, among the many women of pleasure thereabouts, there was one with a fine voice who sang well; and they answered that there was a woman who called herself the daughter of Ōe no Tamabuchi. Seeing that she was of a clean and pleasing appearance, he was taken with her and had her called near. He then had it asked whether she really was Tamabuchi's daughter; and since a poem on the subject of Torikai had just been set for the company, he said that Tamabuchi had been a man of taste who composed well, and that if she could make good use of this subject he would acknowledge her as his daughter indeed. She received the command and composed this poem. He exclaimed aloud at it and wept; and the company, being by then well in drink, wept with him. He gave her an outer robe and a skirt, and declared that he was speaking to every noble, every prince, and every man of the fourth and fifth ranks: any who did not take off his robe and give it to this woman should leave at once. From one end of the room to the other, high and low, all gave their robes, so many that she could not carry them and they were piled to the height of two bays. When he was leaving, hearing that a man called the Seventh Lord of the Nan'in house had built a house and was living near where she lived, he commended her to him: anything she wished to say was to be reported to the palace, and gifts from himself would be sent through the Seventh Lord, who was to see to it that she wanted for nothing. And the Seventh Lord, it is said, went constantly to her and looked after her in every way.
The retired Emperor Uda appears in the hundred and forty-fifth section. The Torikai palace was a villa in Settsu province. Ōe no Tamabuchi was known as a poet, and the singer claimed to be his daughter. The Seventh Lord of the Nan'in house had his home in that neighbourhood.
The setting is the Torikai palace, at a gathering for music and verse, with Torikai set as the subject.
What prompted the poem was the retired emperor's demand that she prove herself Tamabuchi's daughter, on condition that she make good use of the set subject.
He wept and rewarded her, and ordered everyone present to give her the clothes off their backs. The section goes on to tell how, on leaving, he commended her to the care of the Seventh Lord.

The pale green of the first line is the colour of new growth: a spring scene set down at once.
The word for worth in the second line carries the sound of a shell, and its syllables also carry the second half of the set subject, so that the topic is woven into the poem itself.
What follows denies that she is the haze — the thing that properly rises in spring.
The closing marks the recognition that she has risen all the same: as the haze rises, so she has come to stand before these great people. The subject is worked in, and what the poem states is her own good fortune in being summoned there. It answers an improvisation set under conditions, and that, presumably, is what moved the retired emperor to tears.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other