Todomeokite wagagotomonoya omoikemu mirunikanashiki koshinobinomori

English Translation

Did he too leave one
behind him, and grieve as I
grieve, thinking of her?
Sorrowful even to see—
this wood, Koshinobi Grove

Meaning

Did whoever named it leave a child behind and grieve as I grieve? Sorrowful even to look upon—the Grove of Longing for a Child.

Commentary

Section 19: Retreat at Uzumasa; a Letter from the Father

Around the eighth month, on her way to a retreat at Uzumasa by the First Avenue, the author passed two men's carriages drawn up at the roadside, evidently waiting for someone who was to go on with them. As she went by, a man got up like an escort was sent over to say that he saw her going out to view the flowers. Since her companion said it would be graceless not to answer so elegant a sally, she had only an upper verse sent back, and went on her way.
Through the seven days of her retreat her mind was on nothing but her father in the east; she managed, barely, to leave off the idle imaginings her tales had bred in her, and prayed that she might be brought safely together with him again. Surely the Buddha heard so pitiable a prayer.
In winter, on a night after rain had fallen all day, a wind that sweeps the clouds away blew hard, the sky cleared, the moon came out very bright, and the reeds near the eaves were battered by the wind and broke and scattered so pitifully that she made a poem.
A messenger came from the east. Her father wrote that while making the round of the shrines that a governor performs on taking up his post, he had come upon a wide field with water running prettily through it and a stand of trees; thinking what a fine place it was and how sorry he was that he could not show it to her, he asked what it was called, and was told it was the Grove of Longing for a Child. The name went to his heart so painfully that he got down from his horse and sat gazing there for two hours; and he set down a poem. What it was like to read this needs no saying. The author answered with a poem of her own.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her father was appointed governor of Hitachi in Chōgen 5 (1032) and wrote to her from his province. Of the owner of the carriage and his messenger the text gives neither name nor station. Uzumasa is the Kōryūji in the capital, a well-known place of retreat. The shrine circuit is the round of the province's shrines that a governor makes on first taking office.

After the father had gone down to his province, while making the circuit of the shrines; at the place in Hitachi called the Grove of Longing for a Child.

Seeing a stand of trees in a wide field with water running prettily through it, his first thought was regret that he could not show it to his daughter; he asked the name of the place and was told it was the Grove of Longing for a Child. The name went to his heart, and he got down from his horse and gazed there for two hours before composing.

The poem was written into his letter and reached the capital, and the author answered it with "Koshinobio kikunitsuketemo todomeokishi chichibunoyamano tsurakiazumaji." Father and daughter were not reunited until some years later.

Todome okite, "having left someone behind," runs a syllable long and opens by laying his own case over the name of the grove. In the second line ya is interrogative, bound to the attributive kemu, the auxiliary of past conjecture: did whoever gave the place its name grieve for a child as he does? Miru ni kanashiki is sorrowful to look at. The poem closes on the name itself, set as its subject. The chance that the place he asked about along the road of the shrine circuit should be called Longing for a Child is what made the poem, and the prose note that he sat gazing for two hours after dismounting shows how long a stretch of time lies behind it. Where "Omoukoto kokoronikanau minariseba akinowakareo fukakushiramashi" in the previous section said he had no room to savour the parting, this one shows him savouring it fully, out in his province.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other