Amekaze mo kami no kokoro ni makasuramu waga yukusaki no sawari arasuna

English Translation

The rain and the wind
must be left to the god's will—
then let there be no
hindrance set upon the road
that lies ahead of me now.

Meaning

Rain and wind alike must go as the god wills; then let nothing stand in the way of the road ahead of me.

Commentary

Section 6 The Owari Road: from Ichi no Miya to Narumi Bay

The journey of the Izayoi Nikki passes out of Mino and onto the Owari road. After crossing the Sunomata by its floating bridge, she passes a shrine called Ichi no Miya and makes a poem there. On the twentieth she goes by the post station of Orito in Owari, and since the road did not take her out of her way she calls at the Atsuta shrine, brings out her inkstone, and writes out four poems to offer. Passing Narumi Bay, she finds the tide out and goes along the flats without hindrance. Just then a great many shore plovers went on ahead of her, looking for all the world as though they were showing her the way, and she made a poem. She had heard that the capital-bird was to be found only about the Sumida River, but the bird with the red bill and red feet was here on this shore as well, and seeing it she made one more poem; with that the Owari passage closes.

Abutsu-ni was a consort of Fujiwara no Tameie and the mother of Tamesuke and Tamemori, on her way from the capital to Kamakura to press her suit over the inheritance of the Hosokawa estate in Harima. With her went the Ajari no Kimi, the mountain ascetic who served as her guide, and her attendants. All seven poems of this section are her own, with no one to answer them. Four of them are votive poems, written out with her inkstone and offered at the Atsuta shrine; the other three are solitary poems of the road.

The twentieth of the tenth month of Koan 2 (1279), before the god at the Atsuta shrine in Owari.

It is the fourth of the poems written out and offered there, and it closes the votive sequence.

Being an offering, it has no reply. As though in answer, the tide at Narumi Bay was out, and the prose goes on with the very word that ends this poem, saying that she went along the flats without hindrance.

Set last of the four, the poem comes down from the large petition to the plain safety of the road. The first line puts together the rain that fell all day on the Mino road and the wind waiting along the coast, the two things that most immediately obstruct a traveller. The second line restates the closing phrase of "Inoru zo yo waga omou koto Narumigata kata hiku shio mo kami no manimani," showing that the four poems are one continuous prayer. The verb in the third line carries a present conjecture: rain and wind alike must be at the god's disposal; that is stated once and made the ground for the petition below. The fourth line names the road still to be travelled. In the closing line a causative form is joined to a prohibitive particle, so that she asks outright that no hindrance be allowed to arise. Like "Mamore tada chigiri musubu no kami naraba tokenu urami ni ware mayowasade" on the Mino road, this is the prayer poem that speaks to a god in the imperative, and the pattern returns later at the shrine of Mishima in Izu.

Author

Abutsu-ni

Source

Izayoi Nikki

Other