Harubaru to omoi koso yare tabigoromo namida shigururu hodo ya ikani to

English Translation

From far off I send
my thoughts to you—how must it
be, that travel robe
so rained upon by your tears,
and what has become of you?

Meaning

From all this distance my thoughts go out to you: what must it be like, that travelling robe of yours, rained on by your tears?

Commentary

Section 13 The Exchange with Tameko and Tamekane

The Kamakura chapters of the Izayoi Nikki proceed by way of letters arriving from the capital. The daughter of the former Captain of the Right Watch is a woman who composes poetry, and her poems have been taken into the imperial anthologies more than once. Known as the Gon-Chunagon in the household of Omiya-in, she writes to ask how the journey went, perhaps because the two of them had been in the habit of discussing poetry together morning and evening, and a poem comes with the letter. Abutsu-ni answers it. Then the lady's brother, the young lord Tamekane, writes in the same way of his concern for her and sends a poem of his own, and she answers that too. Two poems sent from the capital and two replies stand here together.

Abutsu-ni was a consort of Fujiwara no Tameie and the mother of Tamesuke and Tamemori, and is living at Tsukikage-no-yatsu in Kamakura. The Gon-Chunagon is the daughter of Tamenori, whom the text calls the former Captain of the Right Watch; she serves in the household of Omiya-in and has poems in the imperial anthologies. Tamenori was a son of Tameie and a younger brother of Tameuji, and the elder half-brother of Tamesuke, so that the Gon-Chunagon and Tamekane are grandchildren of Abutsu-ni's late husband. Tamekane is the lady's brother, called so in the text. Omiya-in was the consort of the retired emperor Go-Saga. Of all her correspondents, the Gon-Chunagon is the one with whom Abutsu-ni exchanges the most poems in what follows.

Winter of Koan 2 (1279), a poem in a letter that reached Tsukikage-no-yatsu in Kamakura from the capital.

Perhaps because the two of them had been in the habit of discussing poetry morning and evening, the Gon-Chunagon wrote asking how the journey had gone, and this poem came with that letter.

Abutsu-ni answers at once. The correspondence with this lady goes on: the spring exchange, the exchange during her fever, the exchange about the cuckoo, and at last, near the end of the diary, "Azumaji no sora natsukashiki katami dani shinobu namida ni kumoru tsukikage." She is the correspondent with whom Abutsu-ni exchanges the most poems.

Here the pattern of the poem of enquiry, sent to one far away, appears just as it is. The opening adverb speaks of great distance; it was the Taifu's word in "Harubaru to yukusaki tōku shitawarete ikani sonata no sora o nagamemu" among the parting poems, and it was used again in "Harubaru to Futamurayama o yukisugite nao sue tadoru nobe no yūyami" in Mikawa, so that the east is imagined in the same word from the capital's side as well. The second line binds an emphatic particle to a verb of concern, insisting on the act of thinking of another. The third line names the travelling robe, the word that has stood throughout this diary for the person on the road. The fourth line says that tears fall like a winter shower, keeping to the same figure as "Tabigoromo namida o soete Utsu no yama shigurenu hima mo sazo shigururamu," the reply to the letter from Mount Utsu. The closing line joins an interrogative particle to a quotative, so that the whole line turns back by inversion to the verb in the second, and the poem ends by handing the question over unanswered.

Source

Izayoi Nikki

Other