Tachiizuru amanokawaberano yukashisani tsunewayuyushiki kotomowasurenu

English Translation

Where the two come forth
upon the banks of Heaven's
river—longing so,
I have forgotten the thing
I always held ill-omened

Meaning

The banks of the River of Heaven, where the two come forth to meet, draw me too; and so I have forgotten what I always held to be ill-omened.

Commentary

Section 13: The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, the Sister's Ill-Omened Words, the Fire

Hearing that somewhere there was a household that owned the Chinese poem known as the Song of Everlasting Sorrow written out in the manner of a tale, the author longed to read it, but could not bring herself to ask directly. Finding a suitable intermediary, she sent a poem on the seventh day of the seventh month to request the loan. A reply came saying that although the book was one the owner ordinarily refused to lend as ill-omened, today it would be sent.
On the thirteenth night of the same month, when the moon was flawlessly bright and the whole household had gone to sleep, the author and her sister sat out on the veranda. Gazing steadily at the sky, her sister asked what she would think if, at that very moment, she were to vanish without a trace. Seeing that the question had frightened her, the sister turned the talk to other things and laughed it off; and as they listened, a carriage with outriders clearing the way stopped before the house next door, and someone was sent to call for a woman named Ogi no Ha, but no answer came. Weary of calling, the owner of the carriage played a flute with great beauty and passed on. The two sisters exchanged poems on this, and sat gazing until the sky grew light.
In the fourth month of the following year there was a fire in the middle of the night, and the cat they had cherished as the daughter of the Dainagon burned with the house. When they had called it by that name it would mew as though it understood and come walking to them, so that their father had been saying it was a strange and moving thing and that he would report it to the Dainagon; and coming just then, the loss struck the author as bitter and sad. The house they moved to could not be compared with the old one, which had been wide and deep as a mountain: it was cramped, with no garden to speak of and no trees. When white and red plum bloomed in profusion at the house opposite and the scent came to her on the wind, the old home she had lived in came back to her without end, and she composed another poem.

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 daughter of the Dainagon" refers to the daughter of the Jijū no Dainagon, Fujiwara no Yukinari; the sisters gave that name to the cat which the sister's dream had identified as her rebirth. Their father is Sugawara no Takasue. The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is the long poem by Bai Juyi on the doomed love of Emperor Xuanzong and Yang Guifei.

The seventh day of the seventh month; the reply from the household that owned the text.

It was composed in answer to the author, who had asked for the loan on the night of Tanabata with "Chigirikemu mukashinokyōno yukashisani amanokawanami uchiidetsurukana."

The book was lent along with this reply, and the author obtained the text she had wanted.

Tachiizuru is the coming forth of the two stars to meet, and it takes up the izu of the author's uchiidetsuru, so that it answers at once the meeting in the sky and her own venturing to speak. The second line returns her ama no kawa nami as ama no kawabe, the standard way of taking up a sender's words. Yukashisa ni repeats her own phrase, declaring the same feeling. Tsune wa yuyushiki refers to the owner's usual reluctance to lend a book whose subject is Yang Guifei's death and the emperor's ruin. The closing nu is the auxiliary of completion: the scruple has been forgotten, which is to say the book will be sent. Three lines built from the sender's own words, then two for the owner's circumstances and consent—the shape of a well-made reply.

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other