Yumesamete nezamenotokono ukubakari koikitotsugeyo nishieyukutsuki

English Translation

Waking from the dream
my bed of waking afloat
with tears—tell her this,
that I longed for her so far,
O moon that goes to the west

Meaning

Tell her, moon going west, that when I woke from the dream I longed for her until the bed I woke on was afloat with tears.

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.

Toward dawn on a night of very bright moonlight, at the house in the capital. The friend was in Chikuzen, which lies to the west of the capital.

Longing for the friend gone down to Chikuzen, she fell asleep and dreamed that they were together at the princess's exactly as in life; waking with a start she found it a dream, with the moon already near the ridge, and wished she had not woken. That is what drew the poem.

No reply is recorded. The section closes with it, and the next tells of a journey down to Izumi undertaken for reasons that had to be met.

Yume samete marks the instant of being pulled back from dream into waking. Nezame no toko is the bed on which she woke. Uku bakari, "enough to float," is the conventional exaggeration for the quantity of tears, but it raises the picture of a bed floating like a boat. Koiki to tsugeyo puts ki, the conclusive form of the past auxiliary, inside an imperative: tell her that I longed. The poem ends on a noun, addressing the moon as a messenger. Chikuzen lies west of the capital, so the moon going down in the west is treated as going to where the friend is, and the destination is given without naming the place. Most of the poems to "those of the same mind" in this section drew replies; this one has no assurance of ever reaching her hands, and the very device of entrusting it to the moon measures the distance. In "Amanotoo kumoinagaramo yosonimite mukashinoatoo kofurutsukikana" in Section 25 the moon was a thing gazed at; here it has become the one who carries the message.

Author

Sugawara no Takasue no Musume

Source

Sarashina Nikki

Other