Omoukoto kanawazunazoto itoikoshi inochinohodomo imazoureshiki

English Translation

Nothing I wished for
ever came to me, I said,
and I loathed this life—
yet the length of days I have
is a gladness to me now

Meaning

I loathed this life of mine, saying nothing I wished for ever came to pass—and yet now the length of it is a gladness to me.

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.

The bright moonlit night after the father, his term ended, had returned and settled at the house in the Western Hills.

It answers his daughter's "Kakaruyomo arikerumonoo kagiritote kiminiwakareshi akiwaikanizo," which he received weeping hard.

After this exchange he says that going out into the world once age and decline have come on is unseemly, and shuts himself away, leaving his daughter in unceasing low spirits.

Omou koto is what he had hoped for. Kanawazu nazo to is "saying that nothing ever came of it," nazo being the same as nado. Itoi koshi is to have gone on finding life hateful, koshi being the verb ku with the attributive of the past auxiliary ki: the years he has been given have been a burden to him. Inochi no hodo mo is the length of that life. The close binds the emphatic zo to the attributive ureshiki: now, at last, it is a gladness. His daughter had said that after all there was such a world as this, in which they could meet again; he takes her yo, that world, and answers with his own inochi, his life, so that a life spent resenting its unfulfilled wishes is given meaning by this reunion. The phrase omou koto returns from "Omoukoto kokoronikanau minariseba akinowakareo fukakushiramashi" in Section 18, and the two poems make a pair across the parting and the reunion. Yet directly after this expression of gladness the prose records him speaking of withdrawing from the world altogether, so that the scene of reunion does not end in unclouded brightness.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other