Tatakutomo tarekakuinano kurenuruni yamajiofukaku tazunetehakomu

English Translation

Though there comes a knock,
who would it be? Night has come,
and it is the rail—
who would come seeking me here
so deep along mountain paths

Meaning

Something is knocking—but night has already come, and who would make his way this deep into the mountain paths to look for me? It is only the rail.

Commentary

Section 15: The Father Passed Over at the Appointments; the Beauty of the Eastern Hills

At the appointments in the first month of the new year the author's father should have received a post, but the hope came to nothing. On that fruitless morning a poem arrived from someone who must have felt the same, with a note about the restlessness of lying awake for daybreak, telling himself that surely this time it would come; and the author replied.
Toward the end of the fourth month, for reasons that had to be met, the household moved to a place in the Eastern Hills. Along the road the seedbeds with water let into them and the fields already planted stretched away, greening faintly and pleasant to look at. In the evening, with the shadow of the hills falling dark and close before the house, forlorn and full of feeling, a water rail called and called, and she made a poem.
Ryōzen being close by, she went to worship there; finding it hard going, she stopped at a stone-ringed spring at the mountain temple and drank from her cupped hands. Someone said one could never drink enough of that water, and the author made a poem, to which he replied. On their return, with the evening sun striking clear and the whole of the capital visible in the distance, this man, saying he must go back to the city, felt the parting keenly, and sent another poem the next morning.
When the sound of a monk at his dawn devotions came to her, solemn to hear, she pushed open the door: the ridgeline was paling into light, mist lay over the dark treetops, and the sky closed in by all that foliage, cloudy and lovely, pleased her more than blossom or maples at their height. A cuckoo, too, called over and over from a bough close at hand, and she made a poem of that daybreak and that voice.
Near the end of the month a cuckoo cried noisily from a tree down toward the valley, and she composed again. As she sat gazing, the woman who was with her said: is there anyone in the city hearing this voice now, anyone who spares a thought for us sunk in reverie here? and made a poem, which the author answered.
Near what she took for daybreak, a sound came from the hills as of many people approaching. Startled, she looked out and saw a deer that had come as far as the veranda and was belling there—a voice with no charm in it heard from close by. She made a poem on that, and another on hearing that an acquaintance had come near the house and turned back.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her father is Sugawara no Takasue, who hoped for a post at these appointments and was passed over. Of "the person of the same mind," "the man who drank the water," and "the woman who was with her," the text gives neither name nor station. Ryōzen is one of the peaks of the Eastern Hills, where a mountain temple stood.

An evening at the very end of the fourth month, Manju 2 (1025), soon after the move to the Eastern Hills.

With the shadow of the hills dark and close before the house and the evening full of loneliness, a water rail called on and on; that is what drew the poem.

It is a solitary poem, and no reply is recorded. After it the text moves to the visit to Ryōzen and the drink at the stone-ringed spring, and poems recording the days in the Eastern Hills follow one after another.

Tataku to mo means "even supposing something is knocking." Taking the water rail's call for a knock at the door is a conceit long established in poetry. In the second line ka is the rhetorical particle answering to komu at the close, and kuina, the rail, carries within it the sound of ku, "come," chiming with a poem that says no one will. In the third line nuru is the attributive of the auxiliary of completion and ni is concessive. Yamaji o fukaku is to press deep along the mountain paths. Tazunete wa komu closes the rhetorical question: would anyone come seeking me? no one would. The loneliness of a house just moved into is rendered as the absence of callers, and the prose phrase about the forlorn evening passes straight into the poem. "Madahitome shiranuyamabeno matsukazemo otoshitekaeru monotokosokike," at the end of the section, also turns on no one coming, so that the section opens and closes on the same absence.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other