Taezarishi omoimoimawa taenikeri koshinowatarino yukinofukasani

English Translation

The fire of a thought
that never went out is out
at last, quenched beneath
the depth of the snow that lies
over the Koshi country

Meaning

The feeling that never once broke off has broken off at last, buried under the depth of the snow in the land of Koshi.

Commentary

Section 31: Those of the Same Mind

With nothing much going against her, and with even long pilgrimages of this kind giving her something to find lovely or hard along the road and so easing her mind, and with the future looking hopeful and nothing immediately to grieve over, her whole wish was to see her small children brought up as she would have them; and thinking so she found the years slow in passing, and lived on the single hope that her husband might come in for a post like anyone else, which was a sustaining sort of hope.
A woman with whom she had once talked intimately and exchanged poems night and day, and with whom, though it was no longer as it had been, she had gone on corresponding without a break, went down as the wife of the governor of Echizen and then fell entirely silent. The author at last found someone to carry a letter, sent a poem, and received a reply.
Early in the third month she went to a place deep in the Western Hills. Not a soul was to be seen, the haze lay peacefully over everything, and in that forlorn stillness the cherry alone was in full bloom. She made a poem.
At a time when things between her and her husband were troublesome, she was in retreat at Uzumasa when a letter came from a lady she was close to at the princess's household; and as she was writing her reply a bell sounded, and she added a poem before sending it.
On a mild, quiet day at the princess's, three of them of the same mind had sat talking; and the next day, at a loose end and remembering it with longing, she sent a poem to the other two, and each of them replied.
A woman with whom she was of one mind, who had exchanged letters with her in this way and shared with her everything hard and painful and pleasant in the world, went down to Chikuzen; and on a night when the moon was very bright, thinking how on such a night she would have gone to the princess's and, meeting her, sat gazing till morning without a moment's sleep, the author fell asleep still longing for her. She dreamed they were together at the princess's exactly as they used to be, and woke with a start to find it a dream. The moon had come down close to the ridge. Wishing she had not woken, she gazed all the harder, and made a poem.

The author is known only as the daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. "The one she depended on" is her husband, Tachibana no Toshimichi; the small children are her own. Of the woman who went down as the wife of the governor of Echizen, the lady at the princess's household, the three of one mind, and the woman who went down to Chikuzen, the text gives neither names nor stations. Echizen is a province on the Japan Sea coast, Shirayama a mountain on the border of Kaga and Echizen, Uzumasa the Kōryūji in the capital, and Chikuzen a province in Kyushu.

Sent from the capital to the old friend who had gone down as the wife of the governor of Echizen.

A woman with whom she had once talked intimately and exchanged poems night and day had gone down as the governor's wife and then fallen entirely silent. Finding at last someone to carry a letter, the author sent this.

The reply came back: "Shirayamano yukinoshitanaru sazareishino nakanoomoiwa kiemumonokawa."

Taezarishi is "which had never yet broken off," with shi the attributive of the past auxiliary ki. In the second line omoi, "feeling," carries the sound of hi, fire, in its last syllable, and set beside the snow of the close it raises the picture of a fire put out by snow. Taenikeri joins the auxiliary of completion to keri, the note of recognition: it has broken off, then. Tayu carries at once the ceasing of letters and the ceasing of feeling. Koshi no watari is the whole northern seaboard including Echizen, and the final ni marks cause, breaking off on a noun: because the snow lies so deep. It is a reproach to a friend who has not written, but the blame is laid on the snow rather than on her heart, so that the resentment never comes out directly. The friend answers that under snow the fire does not go out.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other