Takenohano soyoguyogotoni nezameshite nanitomonakini monozokanashiki

English Translation

Each night, at each joint
of bamboo the leaves stirring
wake me from my sleep,
and for no reason at all
a sadness comes over me

Meaning

Each rustle of the bamboo leaves, each night of them, wakes me, and for no reason I can name a sadness comes.

Commentary

Section 16: Back to the Capital from the Eastern Hills

In the eighth month, when the moon of past the twentieth stood beautiful toward dawn, with the hills dark on one side and the sound of the waterfall like nothing else, the author gazed and gazed at it and made a poem.
Setting out at last from the Eastern Hills for the capital, she found that the fields which had shown nothing but water when she came had all been reaped, and the change drew another poem.
Toward the end of the tenth month she came back for a brief look. The leaves that had grown thick and dark had scattered without one left, the whole prospect opened out and full of feeling, and the stream that had run so pleasantly was buried under leaves with only its channel showing. She made a poem on that.
She had told a nun living there that if she lived until spring she would certainly come again, and asked to be sent word as soon as the blossom was at its height; but the year turned and no message came, and by past the tenth of the third month she sent a poem to prompt her.
Having moved to another household, near the time of the moon, in a room close by the bamboo, she was woken again and again by the sound of the wind and could not settle to sleep, and composed another poem.
Around autumn she left that house for another, and sent a poem to the host of the place where she had been staying.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Of the nun in the Eastern Hills and of the host of the lodging, the text gives neither name nor station. A tabi naru tokoro is a stay at a house other than one's own, as when avoiding an unlucky direction.

At a house where she was staying away from home, around the time of the moon, in a room close by the bamboo.

Being woken again and again by the sound of the wind in the bamboo, unable to settle to sleep, is what drew the poem.

It is a solitary poem, and no reply is recorded. In autumn the author leaves this house for another and sends its host "Izukotomo tsuyunoawarewa wakarejio asajigaharano akizokanashiki."

Take no ha no sets down the bamboo. In the second line yo is a pivot on the night and on the joint of a bamboo stem, which makes it an associated word with the plant: each time the leaves stir, and every night, stand together. Nezame shite is waking out of sleep; nani to mo naki ni means there is nothing in particular to account for it, with ni concessive. The close binds the emphatic zo to the attributive kanashiki, and mono adds the sense of a sadness without an object. The point of the poem is that the reason is never given, and the unsettledness of a period spent moving from house to house after leaving the Eastern Hills is recorded through nothing but an outside stimulus, the sound of bamboo. Where "Omoishiru hitonimisebaya yamazatono akinoyofukaki ariakenotsuki" earlier in this section offered a mountain night as something beautiful, the night here is what keeps her from sleeping; the change of place has changed what a night means.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other