Kumotori no aya no iro o mo omooezu hito o aimide toshi no henureba

English Translation

The colours of the
cloud-and-bird damask do not
come into my mind
for the years have gone by and
I have not set eyes on you

Meaning

The colours of the cloud-and-bird damask will not come into my mind, for the years have gone by without my setting eyes on you.

Commentary

159 The Cloud-and-Bird Damask

There was a woman known as the Handmaid of Somedono, whom Minamoto no Yoshiari visited from time to time. She was deft with her hands, and he would ask her to make up clothes for him. Once he brought her a quantity of figured silk, and she asked whether it should be the cloud-and-crane pattern. He gave no answer; and when she said that she could not serve him unless he told her properly, he answered with this poem. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
Minamoto no Yoshiari was the eldest son of Emperor Montoku, reduced to subject status on account of his mother's rank. The Handmaid of Somedono takes her name from that residence and appears again in the hundred and sixtieth section. A handmaid was an officer of the palace attendants' bureau.
The setting is her rooms, where he had brought the silk to be made up.
What prompted the poem was her question about the pattern and her remark that he must tell her properly.
The section ends with the poem; no response and no later event is recorded. It was later included in the Shokugoshūi-shū.

The cloud-and-bird damask is figured silk woven with clouds and birds; he opens with the name of the pattern she has just asked about.
What follows says that its colours will not come into his mind — his answer is that he cannot settle on one.
The fourth line means without setting eyes on her, its grammar negative.
The closing gives the reason: the years have passed. Not having seen her, he cannot picture the colour. Asked about a pattern, he answers with the fact of his long absence, and turns a question about tailoring into an account of why he has not come. An errand turned into a poem, it belongs with the sword-strap of the twenty-second section and the ox of the hundred and ninth.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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