Uwagōri awanimusuberu himonareba kazasuhikageni yurububakario

English Translation

Thin ice on the top
and a cord tied lightly so
that is all it is —
in the sun upon the vine
we wear, it merely loosens

Meaning

It is a cord tied as lightly as the thin ice on the surface — so of course it loosens in the sunlight that falls on the sun-shade vine we wear.

Commentary

90 When Her Majesty Sent Out Dancers for the Gosechi

When the Empress sent out a Gosechi dancer she appointed twelve ladies as attendants. On the night of the Day of the Dragon they were all dressed in blue-printed robes and children's overgowns, with red cords tied in an elegant loop, and the courtiers and senior nobles were so taken with the effect that they dubbed them the ladies of the purification. The Empress said it looked shabby to strip the dancers' quarters bare before dark, and that things should be kept in order until the night itself; the gaps in the curtains were tied up, and the ladies' sleeves spilled out beneath them.

The Empress is Teishi, consort of Emperor Ichijō. The Middle Captain who spoke the preceding poem is Fujiwara no Sanekata, a celebrated poet. The lady whose red cord came loose is Kohyōe, and the one who carried the author's poem is the lady called Ben no Omoto.

The time is the night of the Day of the Dragon during the Gosechi; the place is the palace.

When Sanekata, retying Kohyōe's red cord, spoke "Ashihikino yamainomizuwa kōreruo ikanaruhimono tokurunaruramu," she was too young and too exposed to public view to answer, and the ladies beside her let it pass. The author was sitting four places off, so that even a good reply would have been awkward to deliver, and she hesitated the more because a poem from a man known as a poet would be no ordinary thing to answer. But the household officials were going about clicking their nails in disapproval, and out of pity for them she sent this verse through Ben no Omoto.

Ben no Omoto, however, was too embarrassed to get it out; Sanekata leaned in asking what, what was that, and since she had a slight hesitation in her speech and was putting on airs in the hope of making it sound fine, in the end he never caught it at all. The author writes that it was rather a relief, since it hid the poem's shortcomings.

The first line takes the thin ice on the surface of the water and meets his frozen well head-on, beginning the reply by making that ice something slight. The second line says the cord was tied loosely, so that the thinness of the ice and the slackness of the knot become one thing. The third line gives the reason in a settled conditional: since it is that kind of cord.

The fourth line names the sun-shade vine worn in the hair, and on the same sound turns it into sunlight. The vine is part of the festival dress itself, so the pivot is made out of what is physically present in the room. Let the sun fall on thin ice and it melts; a loosely tied cord comes undone in the same way, and the logic is entirely natural.

The closing line breaks off at "it merely loosens," leaving a particle of feeling hanging at the end. He had asked how a cord could come untied when the water was frozen; she answers that the ice is only a film and the knot only lightly tied, so of course it gives when the sun reaches it — receiving a piece of teasing about the first stir of feeling and handing it back as a remark about clothing and weather. Against his frozen and untied she sets thin ice and loosens, matching him term for term, and while the reply is quick, it is measured enough not to carry more suggestion than it should.

Author

Sei Shōnagon

Source

Makura no Soshi

Other