Ōhara ya Oshio no yama mo kyō koso wa kamiyo no koto o omoiizurame

English Translation

Ōhara — and the
mountain of Oshio too
surely today of
all days must be remembering
things from the age of the gods

Meaning

Ōhara, and the mountain of Oshio too, must surely be remembering today the things of the age of the gods.

Commentary

161 The Seaweed Sent

When Captain Ariwara was courting the Lady of Nijō, before she had entered the emperor's service and was still a private person, she sent him some hijiki seaweed with "Omoi araba mugura no yado ni ne mo shinamu hijikimono ni wa sode o shitsutsu mo". His reply has been forgotten. Later, when she was known as the consort of the Crown Prince, she made a pilgrimage to Ōharano, attended by a great many nobles and courtiers. Captain Ariwara was among them, and was standing near her carriage in the half-light. At the shrine, after gifts had been given to the company at large, she had a single robe she had been wearing passed out to him from the back of her carriage. As he received it he said quietly "Ōhara ya Oshio no yama mo kyō koso wa kamiyo no koto o omoiizurame". Remembering the past, she thought it well said. That is the whole of the section.
Captain Ariwara is Ariwara no Narihira, counted among the six poetic geniuses; his son Ariwara no Shigeharu appears in the hundred and forty-third and hundred and forty-fourth sections, and he himself exchanges poems with the Handmaid of Somedono in the hundred and sixtieth. The Lady of Nijō is Fujiwara no Takaiko, later a consort of Emperor Seiwa. Ōharano is the site of a shrine long associated with the Fujiwara family.
The setting is Ōharano, on her pilgrimage as consort of the Crown Prince, with Narihira among the attendants, standing near her carriage in the half-light.
What prompted the poem was the robe passed out to him from the back of her carriage. He spoke it quietly as he received it.
Remembering the past, she thought it well said. The section closes on that sentence. The poem was later included in the Kokin-shū.

Ōhara and the mountain of Oshio are the shrine's site and its hill — a shrine of the Fujiwara, and the very place of the pilgrimage.
An emphatic particle marks the day and governs the verb that ends the poem: today and no other.
The age of the gods is the time of the deities. On the surface this is a compliment: the shrine's god must be recalling the old days.
Underneath lies the suggestion that she too is remembering the days when she was still a private person; the phrase carries the sense of any distant past. The woman with whom he once exchanged a poem about seaweed now comes as the Crown Prince's consort, and he stands among her attendants receiving a robe. The whole of that distance is put into one quietly spoken line.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other