Yamafukaku tarekaomoiwa okosubeki tsukimiruhitowa ōkaramedomo

English Translation

Deep in the mountains,
who would send a thought this way?
There are many, yes,
who look up and see the moon,
but who would think of us here

Meaning

Deep in these mountains, who would send a thought our way? There must be many who look up at the moon, but that is another thing.

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.

Summer of Manju 2 (1025), at the house in the Eastern Hills.

In the course of days spent gazing at the view, she said aloud that she wondered whether anyone in the capital was hearing this voice at that moment, or sparing a thought for the two of them sunk in reverie.

The author answered with "Fukakiyoni tsukimiruoriwa shiranedomo mazuyamazatozo omoiyararuru," denying it.

Yama fukaku is "here, deep in the hills." In the second line ka is the rhetorical particle bound to the attributive beki at the close, and omoi okosu, to turn one's thoughts toward someone, straddles the second and third lines. Tsuki miru hito wa is those who are looking at the moon. In the close me is the perfective-conditional of the auxiliary mu and domo turns it concessive: there will be many, but. Many may look at the moon, yet none of them will call to mind two women in the depths of these hills. The "to whom" of the author's "Tarenimise tarenikikasemu yamazatono konoakatsukimo ochikaerunemo" is taken up here as "who," and where the author lamented having no one to share the scene with, this poem laments having no one who thinks of them—the loneliness turned from the inside out.

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other