Fuji no ne no taenu omoi mo aru mono o kuyuru wa tsuraki kokoro narikeri

English Translation

On the peak of Fuji
there is a fire that never
goes out — and yet yours
only smoulders: that, it seems
is a cold heart after all

Meaning

On the peak of Fuji there is a fire that never goes out; and yours only smoulders — which is, after all, a cold heart.

Commentary

171 The Smouldering Fire

While the present Minister of the Left was still a Lesser Captain, he went constantly to the Prince of the Ministry of Ceremonial. A woman called Yamato was in the prince's service, and when he spoke to her she, being much given to love, thought him very fine indeed. But it was hard for them to meet often. Yamato sent him "Hito shirenu kokoro no uchi ni moyuru hi wa keburi mo tatade kuyuri koso sure", and his reply was "Fuji no ne no taenu omoi mo aru mono o kuyuru wa tsuraki kokoro narikeri". Then he did not come for a long while, and she waited in great distress. What can have possessed her to do such a thing — she told no one, took a carriage, and went to the palace. Standing the carriage at the guardhouse of the Left Gate Guards, she called to passers-by, saying she must somehow send word to the Captain, and was rebuffed. At last a message got through; and the Captain, puzzled but moved, consulted the Middle Counsellor of Hirohata, had screens and mats brought from his own quarters to the guardhouse, and settled her there. When he asked how she came to do such a thing, she answered that it was nothing, only that she was so distracted with longing — and there the text breaks off. That is the whole of the section.
The present Minister of the Left is Fujiwara no Saneyori, who sends a poem to the Lady of Sanjō in the ninety-sixth section and appears in the hundred and twentieth. The Prince of the Ministry of Ceremonial headed that ministry. Yamato was a woman in his service; some have sought the origin of this book's title in her name. The guardhouse was the station of the Left Gate Guards at the palace. A poem from the Gosen-shū is added at the end of the text in small characters, but it is not counted among the numbered poems.
The setting is the moment her poem reached him.
What prompted it is hers, "Hito shirenu kokoro no uchi ni moyuru hi wa keburi mo tatade kuyuri koso sure", about a fire that sends up no smoke.
Afterwards he stayed away for a long while, and the section goes on to her going to the palace to find him.

The word for longing in the second line is also the word for fire, so that the unceasing smoke of Fuji and an unceasing love are one word. Reading Fuji as the fire of love is an old device.
The concessive that follows carries regret: such a fire exists, and yet. He sets the example of an unfailing flame first.
What follows takes over her own word for smouldering.
There are fires that burn openly like Fuji's, he says, and one that smoulders without smoke does so because the heart behind it is not enough. To a woman pleading a hidden love he answers that hiding is not enough, reversing the sense of her own word.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other