Fuenoneno tadaakikazeto kikoyuruni nadooginohano soyotokotaenu

English Translation

The sound of the flute
was the autumn wind itself
to the ear, and yet
why did the reeds of the bank
never rustle in reply

Meaning

The flute sounded for all the world like the autumn wind itself—so why did the reeds not stir even once in answer?

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 night of the thirteenth of the seventh month, near midnight under a flawless moon, on the veranda of the house in the capital.

A carriage with outriders had stopped before the neighbouring house and a woman called Ogi no Ha had been summoned without answering, and the owner of the carriage, weary of calling, had played his flute beautifully and gone on. Having heard the whole of it, the author turned to her sister with this poem.

The sister agreed that it was just so, and answered with "Oginohano kotaurumademo fukiyorade tadanisuginuru fuenonezouki." The two of them sat gazing until the sky grew light, and only then did the household sleep.

The first line sets down the flute the carriage's owner left behind him. In the second, akikaze is both the wind of autumn and the name of a piece of court music, so that the flute sounded like the autumn wind itself. The ni of the third line is concessive. In the fourth, nado asks why, and ogi no ha is at once the name of the woman called for and the reed that bends in an autumn wind. In the close, soyo is both the sound of leaves brushing together and the word one says in agreement, and nu is the attributive of the negative auxiliary. When the autumn wind blows the reeds should stir, yet these reeds gave no answer: three pivots stacked into a single conceit. The tone is light teasing at the woman who would not reply, and the playfulness of the night sits in the same scene as the weight of the sister's ill-omened question just before it.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other