Madoromaji koyoinaradewa itsukamimu kurotonohamano akinoyonotsuki

English Translation

I shall not slumber—
if not on this night, then when
shall I see again
the shore of Kuroto and
this moon of an autumn night

Meaning

I will not let myself drift into sleep. If not tonight, when will I ever see it again—this autumn moon over the shore of Kuroto?

Commentary

Section 2: From Kazusa to Shimōsa

The author grew up in Kazusa, far out in the eastern provinces, and longed for the tales told in the capital. When her father's term of office ended and the family was to return to the city, she set out in the ninth month, on the third day of the year she turned thirteen, moving first to a temporary lodging called Imatachi. On the fifteenth they crossed out of Kazusa into Shimōsa and stopped at a place called Ikata, and on the early morning of the seventeenth they set off again. That day they passed the site where a man called Mano no Chō was said to have lived long ago, who had a thousand and ten thousand bolts of cloth woven and bleached there, and they crossed a deep river by boat. Standing in the water were four great pillars, said to be the posts of the old gate. Hearing her companions compose poems at the sight of them, the author too made a poem, silently, within her heart.
That night they lodged at a place called Kuroto no Hama. On one side rose a broad hill; the sand stretched away white into the distance, pine groves grew thick, the moon was very bright, and the sound of the wind was desolate. As the others, moved by the scene, composed poems among themselves, she too made a poem in praise of the moon she was about to lose.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her father was a fifth-generation descendant of Sugawara no Michizane and had gone down to the province as Governor of Kazusa. Her mother's elder half-sister was the author of the Kagerō Nikki. Her elder sister, her stepmother, and her nurse traveled with the party.

Night of the seventeenth day of the ninth month, Kannin 4 (1020), at their lodging on the shore called Kuroto no Hama in the province of Shimōsa.

A broad hill on one side, white sand stretching far away, thick pine groves, a very bright moon, and a wind whose sound came desolate to the ear: it was this scene, and the poems her companions began to exchange because of it, that drew the verse from her.

The poem was made among the recitations of her fellow travelers, and no reply is recorded. The impression of that night's moon carries into the following morning: at the Matsusato crossing she visits her nurse, who must travel up to the capital separately, and the moon pours unhindered into a shelter thatched with a single layer of reed matting, lighting the nurse's face. Unable to forget that image, the author takes no more pleasure in the moon and lies down heartsick. Later, when the nurse's death is recorded, she is remembered as the one whose face she saw so movingly by moonlight at the Matsusato crossing, so that the moon of this journey runs through the work as a single thread.

The poem opens with madoromaji, in which the auxiliary maji expresses negative intention: she tells herself she will not doze, will not sleep. Koyoi naradewa, "if not tonight," leads into itsuka mimu, where itsuka is rhetorical and mu is the auxiliary of conjecture; behind the words lies the certainty that she will never see this again. Only in the fourth line does she name the place, Kuroto no Hama, and the poem closes on a noun, aki no yo no tsuki, letting the image stand. The singularity of a moon seen on one night of a journey and never again is held in place by the temporal words koyoi and itsuka on one side and the place name on the other. Where "Kuchimosenu konokawabashira nokorazuwa mukashinoatoo ikadeshiramashi," composed earlier the same day, turns toward a vanished past, this poem turns toward the one night present before her; the two make a pair.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other