Sodenururu arisonamito shirinagara tomonikazukio seshizokoishiki

English Translation

Waves that soak the sleeve
on a rough shore—I knew it,
and yet all the same
we dived there together once,
and that is what I long for

Meaning

I knew they were the waves of a rough shore, that would soak our sleeves—and yet that we dived there together is what I long for now.

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.

The day after three of them had talked together at the princess's on a mild, quiet day and then withdrawn; sent from home to the other two.

At a loose end the following day, remembering with longing the hours the three of them had spent talking, she was moved to send this.

One of the two answered with "Arisowa asaredonanno kainakute ushioninururu amanosodekana," and the other with "Mirumeouru uraniarazuwa arisono namimakazouru amamoarajio."

Sode nururu is a sleeve soaked, at once by seawater and by tears. Ariso in the second line is a rocky, difficult shore, set down as a figure for the hardship of court service. Shirinagara is "knowing it, and even so." Kazuki in the fourth line is diving for shellfish and seaweed, a figure for hardship shared. The close binds the emphatic zo to the attributive koishiki. Sode, ariso, nami and kazuki run on together as words of the shore, turning the days of service into one continuous seascape. To say that what she longs for is not the hardship but the fact of having borne it together is to mourn the companions rather than the work, and each of the two takes up the same seascape in her reply.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other