Tanigawano nagarewaameto kikoyuredo hokayorikenaru ariakenotsuki

English Translation

The valley stream's flow
sounded to me like rainfall—
but there, past compare
with any seen otherwhere,
was the moon of the daybreak

Meaning

The flow of the valley stream had sounded to me like rain—yet here was a dawn moon finer than any I had seen elsewhere.

Commentary

Section 30: A Life of Pilgrimages

Setting down without order things separated by two or three, or four or five years makes her look like an ascetic forever on the road; but it is not so—these were things years apart.
Around spring she went into retreat at Kurama. The ridgeline was hazed over and everything peaceful, and it was pleasant that people came down from the hills with a few wild yams they had dug. The road out held nothing, the blossom all fallen; but going up again about the tenth month, the mountain country along the way was far finer at that season. The ridge looked like brocade spread open, and the water came boiling down and leapt back like scattered crystal—better than anywhere. Reaching the temple and coming to the monks' quarters, she found maples soaked with the passing rains, beautiful past comparison, and made a poem.
Two years or so later she went into retreat at Ishiyama, where rain fell hard all night. Having heard that rain is a nuisance when one is away from home, she pushed up the shutter and looked out: the dawn moon lay clear to the very floor of the valley, and what she had taken for rain was water running from the roots of the trees. She made a poem on that.
Going once more to Hatsuse, she felt incomparably surer of herself than the first time. People made ready for her here and there along the way, so that she could not press on. In Yamashiro the maples of the Hahaso wood were at their finest. Crossing the Hatsuse River she made another poem, and to think so was itself a comfort.
Coming away after three days of retreat, the party this time was too large to lodge in the little houses on the near side of Narazaka, and a rough hut was thrown up in the open country, so that the people simply sat out in the fields all night. Leggings were spread on the grass and matting laid over them, and the night passed in the flimsiest of arrangements, with the dew settling thick even on their heads. The moon toward dawn was wonderfully clear, lovely beyond anything, and she made one more poem.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Kurama is the Kuramadera north of the capital, Ishiyama the Ishiyamadera in Ōmi, Hatsuse the Hasedera in Yamato, and the Hahaso wood a poetic place name in Yamashiro. The "token of the cedar" refers to her earlier retreat at Hatsuse, when at dawn she dreamed that something was thrown out to her with the words that it was a cedar granted as a sign from Inari.

Some two years after the Kurama visit; toward dawn on a night of retreat at Ishiyama.

Believing that heavy rain was falling all night, and having heard that rain is a nuisance away from home, she pushed up the shutter to look, and found the dawn moon clear to the bottom of the valley and the supposed rain to be water running from the roots of the trees. Realizing her mistake is what drew the poem.

It is a solitary poem, and no reply is recorded. Afterwards she goes again to Hatsuse and composes "Hatsusegawa tachikaeritsutsu tazunureba suginoshirushimo konotabiyamimu."

The first line gives away the true source of the sound at once, and the second admits that she had taken it for rain. In the third line do is a concessive particle, cancelling the ear's verdict. Kenari in the fourth line, derived from kotonari, means markedly superior, out of the common. The poem closes on a noun, setting there what she found when she raised her eyes. The upper half is an error of hearing and the lower a discovery of sight, and on the hinge of one action—pushing up the shutter—a night she had taken for rain turns into a night of perfectly clear moonlight. "Ōsakano sekinosekikaze fukukoewa mukashikikishini kawarazarikeri" in Section 27 also takes sound for its subject, but there she recognized something unchanged, while here she recognizes that she had misheard; the two poems of the ear face opposite ways.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other