Kakaruyomo arikerumonoo kagiritote kiminiwakareshi akiwaikanizo

English Translation

That such days could come
after all—and yet that day,
parting as though it
were the last, what was it then,
that autumn I let you go

Meaning

Such a day as this could come after all—then what was that autumn, when I parted from you as though it were the end?

Commentary

Section 22: The Father's Return to the Capital

The father who had gone down to the east managed at last to come up to the capital, and settled at a place in the Western Hills; the whole household moved there and saw him, to their great joy. On a bright moonlit night they talked the whole night through, and the author made a poem, at which her father wept hard and answered.
Set against the grief of being told that this might be their parting for good, the joy of having him safely home was without limit. Yet he said only that when he had watched it happen to others, going out into the world again after age and decline had come on had looked ridiculous, and that he would shut himself away as he was; and speaking of the world as though nothing were left in it for him, he left his daughter in unceasing low spirits.
At the house in the Western Hills, a wide field stretched away to the east, and the eastern ridgeline could be seen unbroken from Mount Hiei as far as the hill they call Inari; from the south the wind in the pines of Narabi Hill came close and forlorn to the ear; and indoors the clatter of the bird-scarers being pulled in the fields carried right up to where one sat, all of it pleasantly like the country. Bright moonlit nights were very fine, and she passed her time gazing them away, but the people she had known were far off now and sent no word. When on some occasion a messenger came to ask whether anything was the matter, she was startled, and sent another poem.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her father, his term as governor of Hitachi over, came up to the capital and withdrew from the world at the house in the Western Hills. Her mother was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu and a younger half-sister of the author of the Kagerō Nikki. The Western Hills are the high ground west of the capital, Narabi Hill stands near them, and Hiei and Inari are the hills seen to the east of the city.

When the father, his term ended, had come back and settled at the house in the Western Hills; on a bright moonlit night.

Meeting the father whose four-year term was over, and talking the whole night through under a bright moon, is what drew the poem.

Her father wept hard and answered with "Omoukoto kanawazunazoto itoikoshi inochinohodomo imazoureshiki." Not long after, he said that going out into the world in old age was unseemly, and shut himself away.

Kakaru yo mo is "a time like this, a world in which we meet again." In the second line keri carries the note of sudden recognition—so there was such a time after all—and mono o is a conjunctive particle of concession and feeling, breaking off on "and yet." Kagiri to te is "taking it for the last." In the fourth line shi is the attributive of the past auxiliary ki. The poem closes by asking what that autumn was, with zo adding emphasis. The parting of Section 18 fell in the seventh month, in autumn, and there her father composed "Omoukoto kokoronikanau minariseba akinowakareo fukakushiramashi" and she answered "Kaketekoso omowazarishika konoyonite shibashimokimini wakarubeshitowa." This poem names that autumn and looks back at it, so that the joy of reunion is spoken by calling up the very words of the parting. That the joy is never stated outright, but put instead as a question about what the parting had been, is the whole movement of the verse.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other