Shigekarishi ukiyonokotomo wasurarezu iriainokaneno kokorobososani

English Translation

The thick-crowding cares
of this sad world will not leave
my mind even here—
such is the forlorn sounding
of the bell at fall of dusk

Meaning

Even here I cannot put out of mind the crowding troubles of this sad world—so forlorn is the sound of the evening bell.

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.

At a difficult time in her marriage, during a retreat at Uzumasa, toward nightfall.

A letter had come from a lady she was close to at the princess's household, and while she was writing her reply the evening bell sounded. That is what made her add the poem.

No reply is recorded. Next after it comes the exchange following the day when three of them sat talking at the princess's.

Shigekarishi is "which were many, which pressed thick upon one," with shi the attributive of the past auxiliary ki. Uki yo in the second line is this world of trouble, here the vexations of the world including her marriage. In the third line rare marks possibility: she cannot forget. The paradox stands there—in the very place she has withdrawn to in order to leave the world, the world will not be left. Iriai no kane is the bell rung at dusk, and the final ni marks cause, the poem breaking off on a noun. A temple bell should turn the mind away from the world; here the forlornness of its sound calls the world's cares back, and the place of retreat and the secular mind cross in a single verse. In Section 19 her retreat at this same Uzumasa was described as the one occasion when she left her daydreams behind and prayed only for her father's safety; here, in the same place, the world does not let go.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other