Azumaji no isoyamakaze no taema yori nami sae hana no omokage ni tatsu

English Translation

On the eastern road,
through a lull in the shore wind
off the hills, the waves
themselves rise up before me
with the semblance of blossom.

Meaning

On the eastern road, in a lull of the wind off the shore hills, even the waves rise up wearing the likeness of blossom.

Commentary

Section 17 The Exchange with Tameko

The Gon-Chunagon is a woman who gives herself to poetry without distraction, and so Abutsu-ni gathers together the poems she has lately been writing as practice and sends them to her. Since she lives near the sea, she adds that even when she picks up shells there, this is not the shore of Nagusa and she is not consoled after all; and she sends five poems. She had written them just as the brush ran, as she pleased, and the messenger being in haste they were left looking half-finished; and the reply came back with no delay at all. In it the lady writes that the uncertainty of these days has cleared away, like haze, with this letter, and four poems come with it. The four sent from the capital answer the first, third, fourth and fifth of the poems Abutsu-ni had sent.

Abutsu-ni was a consort of Fujiwara no Tameie and the mother of Tamesuke and Tamemori, living at Tsukikage-no-yatsu in Kamakura. The Gon-Chunagon is the daughter of Tamenori, the former Captain of the Right Watch, and serves in the household of Omiya-in. Tamenori was a son of Tameie and a younger brother of Tameuji, and the elder half-brother of Tamesuke, so that the Gon-Chunagon is a granddaughter of Abutsu-ni's late husband. She had already written at the start of winter with "Harubaru to omoi koso yare tabigoromo namida shigururu hodo ya ikani to," and this exchange continues that correspondence. The prose calls her a woman who gives herself to poetry without distraction, and this is the section in which the most poems pass between them anywhere in the Kamakura chapters.

Spring of Koan 3 (1280); one of five practice poems sent from Tsukikage-no-yatsu in Kamakura to the capital.

It is the fourth of the five practice poems.

The reply is "Shiranami no iro mo hitotsu ni chiru hana o omoiyaru sae omokage ni tatsu," which takes over the closing line of this poem unchanged.

White waves are seen as cherry blossom, and of the five this is the poem in which the workmanship shows most. The first line names the eastern road, the phrase used in "Wataramu to omoi ya kakeshi Azumaji ni ari to bakari wa Kikugawa no mizu" in Totomi and in "Azumaji no Yusaka o koete miwataseba shioki nagaruru Hayakawa no mizu" in Izu, here saying that this is where she now lives. The second line names the same wind off the shore hills as "Shirazarishi urayamakaze mo umegaka wa miyako ni nitaru haru no akebono." The third line, through a break in that wind, assumes that the wind had been blocking her view. The additive particle in the fourth line carries the implication that in a place with no blossom to see, even the waves will do. The closing phrase means that something not actually before one rises in the mind, and the white crests are seen as falling cherry. It is the posture of someone shut out from the flowers of the capital and taking waves in their place, and from here the five poems begin to turn toward an address to her correspondent.

Author

Abutsu-ni

Source

Izayoi Nikki

Other