Minahito wa hana no koromo ni narinu nari koke no tamoto yo kawaki dani seyo

English Translation

All men, I am told
have put on their flowered robes
again — and you, sleeve
of moss, at the least of it
dry: only let yourself dry

Meaning

All men, I am told, have put on their flowered robes again. And you, sleeve of moss — at the very least, dry.

Commentary

168 The Robe of Moss

In the reign of the emperor known as Fukakusa there was a man called the Lesser Captain of the Yoshimine family, who stood high in favour and was much given to love. A woman he met from time to time in secret was in the same palace. On a night when they had promised to meet without fail, she made herself ready and waited, and no sound came; waking and wondering whether the night was over, she heard the hour called, and hearing it called the third quarter of the ox, she sent the man an opening verse only. Startled, he added the closing lines and sent them back: meaning to rest a moment, he had slept past the hour. He was thought a man of rare accomplishment, and the emperor he served held him in the highest regard; and then that emperor died. On the night of the funeral, among all those in attendance, the Lesser Captain vanished. Friends and wives searched for a time and heard nothing. Had he taken orders, or drowned himself? The world grieved for him, and his wives and children fasted and prayed, and no word came. He had three wives; to two of whom he thought moderately well he had said that he did not mean to go on living in the world, but to the one he loved beyond measure, who had children, he gave no sign at all. That wife went on pilgrimage to Hatsuse. The Captain had become a priest, wore a single straw cape, wandered the provinces, and was performing his devotions at that very temple. Sitting near a cell, he heard the woman say to the officiant: if this man is alive, let me see him once more; if he has drowned himself, set him on that road; and let me know his state, in dream or waking. She offered her own robes, belt and sword for the reading of sutras, and wept. Hearing his own case pleaded and his own clothes given away, he thought a thousand times of running out, and each time held back, and wept the night through. In the morning, wherever tears had fallen on the straw cape they were tears of blood. Still nothing was known of him. At the first anniversary, when the courtiers went to the riverbank to put off mourning, an oddly dressed boy brought a letter written on an oak leaf; and it read, all men have put on flowered robes. The hand was the Lesser Captain's, and by this everyone knew he had taken orders — though where he was, no one could learn. The Empress of Gojō sent a guardsman to search the mountains; at one place he was told the man was there and found him gone, at another the same. At last the messenger came upon him unawares in his hiding place and could not be avoided. Given the empress's message, the holy man wept and answered with a poem to be reported to her. His face and figure were not the man's at all but a shadow, and he wore nothing but the straw cape. The messenger went home weeping and reported all, and the empress and her household wept. A reply was sent back, and he was no longer there. Ono no Komachi, on pilgrimage to Kiyomizu in the First Month, heard a strangely noble voice at the sutras, thought it might be the Lesser Captain, and sent word that she was cold and would he lend her a robe, with a poem about sleeping on the rock; and back came a poem about the robe of moss. Certain now that it was he, and having been on easy terms with him, she went to speak with him — and he had vanished as though wiped away. The holy man who had so vanished rose to be an archbishop and lived at the temple of Kazan. He had children from his years in the world; the eldest, an officer of the Left Guards, attended at court, and when he came the archbishop said that a priest's son had best be a priest, and made him one too. The poem about breaking off the flower is the archbishop's. That son, having taken orders against his will, was not like his father and went about in the capital. He secretly courted a kinswoman's daughter who was being brought up for the palace; her parents, hearing of it, spoke harshly to both and would not admit him, so that he kept to his cell on the mountain and could not send word. Long afterwards, the woman's brothers came up the mountain for a service, called at his cell, talked, and rested; and on the collar of a robe he wrote the poem about the white cloud. Her brother, an officer of the Guards, went back to the capital without noticing it; his sister found it, and perhaps was moved. This man became a bishop and was known as the Bishop of Kyōgoku.
The Lesser Captain is Yoshimine no Munesada, later the Archbishop Henjō, counted among the six poetic geniuses; he appears again in the hundred and seventy-third section. The emperor called Fukakusa is Emperor Ninmyō. The Empress of Gojō is Fujiwara no Junshi, his consort. Ono no Komachi is counted among the six poetic geniuses. Hatsuse is the Hasedera temple, and Kazan the Gangyōji.
The setting is the emperor's first anniversary, with the courtiers gone to the riverbank to put off mourning.
What prompted the poem was the end of the mourning. An oddly dressed boy brought it, written on an oak leaf.
By it everyone knew he had taken orders; where he was remained unknown, and the section goes on to the empress's messenger. The poem was later included in the Kokin-shū.

The flowered robes are the bright clothes put on when mourning ends.
The grammar marks it as hearsay: so he is told. That one word shows he was not there.
The sleeve of moss is the sleeve of a priest's habit, set against the flowered robes: those who return to the world and one who does not.
The particle in the last line means at the very least. The mourning is over and his own sleeve is still wet; let it at least dry. A man who vanished without a word to anyone announces, in this one poem, both that he lives and what he has become.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other