Furusato wa shigure ni tachishi tabigoromo yuki ni ya itodo saemasaruramu

English Translation

In the old city
you set out in the cold rain—
and that travel robe,
is it colder now, out there,
with the snow upon it too?

Meaning

You set out from the capital in the winter rain; is that travelling robe of yours colder still now, under the snow?

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 came from the capital to Tsukikage-no-yatsu in Kamakura.

After the exchange with the Gon-Chunagon, her brother the young lord Tamekane wrote in the same way of his concern, and this poem came with his letter.

Abutsu-ni answers this too. The section closes with those four poems, and the prose moves on to the exchange with the Mikushige-dono of Shikken-mon'in.

A single travelling robe joins the day of her departure from the capital to her present in the east. The first line names the capital as the old home; travellers in this diary have called it so since "Uchishigure furusato omou sode nurete yukusaki tōki noji no shinohara" on the Omi road, but here it is those who stayed who use the word of the place where they are. In the second line the verb means both to set out and to cut cloth, drawing in the travelling robe of the third line as an associated word. The preface had said that the season was the start of winter and that showers fell on and off without ceasing, and the day of departure is caught here exactly. The interrogative particle in the fourth line binds to the conjecture at the end, and the adverb piles one cold on another: the robe was already cold with rain, and now. The verb that closes the poem means to be chilled through, with a present conjecture about what cannot be seen. The turn of the season from rain to snow is laid over the distance from the capital to the east, and the pattern of the poem of enquiry, reckoning the other's present from the day one saw her go, comes out clearly.

Author

Kyōgoku Tamekane

Source

Izayoi Nikki

Other