Omoukoto kokoronikanau minariseba akinowakareo fukakushiramashi

English Translation

Were I one whose wish
came to pass as he would have,
then I would have known
the parting of this autumn
in all its depth, and its grief

Meaning

Were I a man whose wishes came to pass as he would have them, I might have known this autumn parting in all its depth.

Commentary

Section 18: The Father Appointed Governor of Hitachi

While the author passed her days on the hopeless expectation that if her father came into some position of consequence her own standing would rise with it, he was at last appointed governor of a province far off in the east.
He lamented night and day. For years, he said, he had thought that if he were given a province near the capital he would first make much of her to his heart's content, take her down with him, show her the sea and the hills, and, that aside, treat her with more honour than himself. His luck and hers from a former life being poor, it had come at last to a province as distant as this. Even when he took her east as a child, he had thought that if his own health failed even a little he would be leaving her stranded in that country. For all the strangeness of the provinces, he could have managed well enough alone; it was dragging a whole household with him, unable to say what he wished or do what he wished, that had worn at him. Now, with her grown, to take her down and then have his own life fail—drifting in the capital is common enough, but to be left adrift as a countrywoman in the east would be too wretched. Leaving her in the capital, there were no relatives who would take her in. Yet a province hardly come by could not be declined. So he must leave her behind, and this might be their parting for good; nor could he see his way to settling her future first and then going. To hear him say this made her forget all thought of blossom and maples for grief, but there was nothing to be done.
On the thirteenth day of the seventh month he went down. From five days before, meeting only made things worse, and he did not come to her room. On the day itself the house was in an uproar; when the hour came, he raised her blind for the last time, they looked at each other and let the tears fall, and he went straight out. Watching him go, her sight went dark and she fell forward where she was. A manservant who was to stay in the capital saw him part of the way and came back with a poem written on a sheet of pocket paper, which she could not see for tears. In easier times she would have turned over even a clumsy verse at length; unable to think what to say, she sent an answer.
Callers grew fewer still, and she sat in low spirits wondering all day where he might be by now. Knowing the road herself, her longing and loneliness had no limit, and from morning to night she passed the time gazing at the eastern ridgeline.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her father was appointed governor of Hitachi in Chōgen 5 (1032) and went down alone. Her mother was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu and a younger half-sister of the author of the Kagerō Nikki. Hitachi lies at the far eastern end of the Tōkaidō, further still than the Kazusa of her childhood.

The thirteenth day of the seventh month, Chōgen 5 (1032), the day of the departure for Hitachi; written on the pocket paper the manservant brought back from seeing him off.

It was written on the road, out of the knowledge that he must go to a distant province leaving his daughter in the capital, and that this might be their last parting.

Unable to see the poem for tears and unable to think what to say, the author answered with "Kaketekoso omowazarishika konoyonite shibashimokimini wakarubeshitowa." From then on she passed her days gazing at the eastern ridgeline from morning to night.

Omou koto is the thing wished for. Kokoro ni kanau is to have things go as one would; here, the long-held wish for a province near the capital. In the third line seba frames a condition contrary to fact, answering to mashi at the close. Aki no wakare is the parting of the season and the parting of father and daughter at once. Fukaku shiramashi is "I might have known it deeply." Had his wishes been granted, he would have had room to savour an autumn parting as such; as it is, he has none—and behind the verse stand the distance of Hitachi and the daughter left behind. The long lament set out in the prose is folded in the poem into the single phrase omou koto kokoro ni kanau mi nariseba, and the manner of its delivery—not handed over face to face but written on pocket paper and carried back by a servant—suits a poem made of what could not be said aloud.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other