Akazarishi yadonosakurao harukurete chirigatanishimo hitomemishikana

English Translation

Never sated, I
came to that house's cherry
only as spring closed
and the petals were falling—
just one glimpse, and that was all

Meaning

That cherry at the house I could never see enough of—only as the spring was closing, only as the petals fell, did I catch a single glimpse of it.

Commentary

Section 12: The Charming Cat

Toward the end of the third month the household moved to another house to avoid a directional taboo of the earth. There the cherry was at its height and lovely, and some blossoms had not yet fallen. On the day after returning home, the author sent off a poem.
Whenever the blossoms opened and fell she was cast down by the thought that this was the season in which her nurse had died, and looking at the writing left by the daughter of the Jijū no Dainagon, who had died at the same time, she grew sad without knowing why. Around the fifth month, sitting up late into the night over a tale, she heard a cat mewing very softly, though nothing showed where it had come from. Startled, she looked and found a most charming cat. Her elder sister said to keep quiet and let no one hear, that it was a lovely creature and they would keep it, and so it was laid down beside them and kept hidden from the household. The cat would go nowhere near the servants, stayed always in front of the two sisters, and turned its face away from any food that was not clean. In time the sister fell ill, the house grew unsettled with nursing, and the cat, shut away in the north room and never called for, cried and made a clamour. The sick sister roused herself and asked that the cat be brought to her, explaining that in a dream it had come to her side and said, weeping, that it was the daughter of the Jijū no Dainagon in this form, that some bond from a former life had kept it there a little while because the second daughter of the house thought of her so tenderly, and that being cast among the servants of late was a wretched thing. Hearing this, the author was deeply moved, and from then on she kept the cat close and would not let it out to the north room again.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. The elder sister is the one with whom she read tales in the same house. The Jijū no Dainagon is Fujiwara no Yukinari, and the specimen of his daughter's hand was the writing model the author had been given soon after her arrival in the capital. The naka no kimi whom the cat names in the sister's dream means the second daughter, that is, the author herself.

Toward the end of the third month, on the day after the household returned from the house to which it had moved to avoid the earth taboo; sent from the house in the capital.

At the house where they had stayed the cherry was at its height, with some blossoms still unfallen. On the day after returning, she sent word about those flowers, and this is the poem.

No reply is recorded. After this, the passing of the blossoms brings back her nurse's death each time, and while she spends her days in low spirits over the young lady's handwriting, the night in the fifth month arrives when the charming cat appears.

Akazarishi means "of which I never had my fill," shi being the attributive of the past auxiliary ki. The second line names the object, the cherry at that house. Haru kurete is the spring drawing to its close. In the fourth line chirigata is the moment of falling, the very edge of the scattering, and shimo is an emphatic particle carrying the sense of "of all times, just then." The closing kana is exclamatory, leaving the regret of having caught no more than a glimpse. Akazarishi and hitome mishi face each other squarely—no amount would have been enough, and she was granted almost nothing—while haru kurete and chirigata ni pile up the lateness of the hour between them. The cat's story begins later in this same section, but the link between falling blossom and the remembered dead carries over here from "Chiruhanamo matakomuharuwa momoyasemu yagatewakareshi hitozokoishiki."

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other