Tsurezure to itodo kokoro no wabishiki ni kyō wa towazute kurashitemu to ya

English Translation

Idle here, and more
and more forlorn in my heart —
and today, is it
your intention to let the
day pass without coming once

Meaning

Idle here, and more forlorn in my heart than ever — and today, do you mean to let the day pass without once coming?

Commentary

165 The Road We All Go

In the reign of the Mizunoo Emperor there was a daughter of the Senior Controller of the Left, known as the Lady of Ben; and after the emperor had taken holy orders and she was living alone, Captain Ariwara used to visit her in secret. He fell ill and grew very bad; but since he had wives of his own and the affair was closely hidden, she could not go openly to see him, and her visits were made in secret, day after day. Then came a day when she did not go. His illness had grown grave, and that was the day. From him came "Tsurezure to itodo kokoro no wabishiki ni kyō wa towazute kurashitemu to ya". Hearing how weak he had grown, she wept and cried out, and while she was composing an answer to send, word came that he was dead, and her grief was terrible. At the very point of dying he had composed "Tsui ni yuku michi to wa kanete kikishikado kinō kyō to wa omowazarishi o", and with that he breathed his last. That is the whole of the section.
The Mizunoo Emperor is Emperor Seiwa. The Senior Controller of the Left headed one of the controllers' offices of the Council of State, and the Lady of Ben was his daughter. Captain Ariwara is Ariwara no Narihira, who appears in the hundred and sixty-first through hundred and sixty-third sections. The second poem of this section appears also in the hundred and twenty-fifth section of the Tales of Ise.
The setting is his sickbed, with the illness grave and the day come.
What prompted the poem was that the secret visits, made daily until then, did not come that day. It was sent to the Lady of Ben.
She wept and set about composing an answer, and while she did so word came that he was dead. The section goes on to his last poem.

The first phrase means having nothing to do and nowhere to put oneself — a man lying ill.
What follows says his heart is more forlorn than ever.
The verb in the fourth line is the one used for visiting and for calling on the sick: the daily visits.
The closing asks whether she means to let the day go by, and breaks off on a question. It has the form of a reproach, though both of them know why she cannot come. By the time it reached her he was already at the point of death.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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