Wagimoko ga nekutare kami o Sarusawa no ike no tamamo to miru zo kanashiki

English Translation

That the sleep-tangled
hair of the girl I loved should
be what I see now
as the jewelled weed of the pond
at Sarusawa: the grief

Meaning

That the sleep-tangled hair of the girl I loved should be what I now see as the jewelled weed of the Sarusawa pond — the grief of it.

Commentary

150 The Sarusawa Pond

Long ago there was a palace serving woman in the household of the emperor at Nara. She was beautiful in face and figure, and though men courted her, and nobles courted her, she would have none of them; for she held the emperor dear beyond measure. Once the emperor summoned her; but he did not summon her again, and she was overcome with grief. Day and night she could not put it out of her mind, and was worn down with longing and misery. To the emperor the summons had seemed nothing out of the way. Since she could not avoid seeing his face daily, she felt she could not go on living, and one night she slipped out and threw herself into the Sarusawa pond. Even after this the emperor knew nothing of it, until someone mentioned it in the course of conversation and he heard. Much moved, he made a progress to the bank of the Sarusawa pond and had the company compose poems there. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro composed "Wagimoko ga nekutare kami o Sarusawa no ike no tamamo to miru zo kanashiki", and the emperor composed "Sarusawa no ike mo tsurashi na wagimoko ga tamamo kazukaba mizu zo hinamashi"; and he had a grave made and returned. That is the whole of the section.
The emperor at Nara is the emperor of the Nara capital. A palace serving woman was one brought from the provinces to attend at the imperial table. The Sarusawa pond lies beside the Kōfukuji temple at Nara. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro is the great poet of the Man'yō-shū. The fourteenth section gives a poem drawing on the weeds of this same pond.
The setting is the bank of the Sarusawa pond, where the emperor had made a progress and set the company to compose.
What prompted the poem was that command — a gathering that served also as a memorial for the drowned woman.
The emperor answered, had a grave made, and returned. The section closes there. This poem was later included in the Shūi-shū.

The first word is a term of endearment for a woman, common in the Man'yō-shū.
Sleep-tangled hair is hair as it is in the morning — the sight only an intimate sees.
The jewelled weed of the pond is the fine water plant there, swaying under the surface as loosened hair does.
The closing, with an emphatic particle governing its adjective, states the grief of seeing the one in the other. The fourteenth section builds a plea on these same weeds; the story taken for granted there is told outright here.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other