Kataramu hito naki sato ni hototogisu kai nakaru beki koe na furushi so

English Translation

In a village where
no one waits to speak with you,
hototogisu,
do not wear that voice of yours
out — it will come to nothing.

Meaning

In a village where there is no one to speak with you, cuckoo, do not go on wearing out a voice that can come to nothing.

Commentary

2 Kaneie's Courtship

A man of the high oak branches decided to send a letter to the author. An ordinary suitor would have made his approach through a lady-in-waiting who could arrange matters, but this man dropped hints to the person who seemed to be her father, half in jest and half in earnest, and then, indifferent to how it might look, had a mounted messenger pound at the gate. There was no need to ask whom the letter came from, such was the commotion, and the household took it in with much fuss and bewilderment. When it was opened, the paper was not the usual sort, and the hand was so poor that it could hardly be the celebrated writing they had grown tired of hearing praised. The author found it all strange. What was written there was only the poem of courtship.
The man of the high oak branches is Fujiwara no Kaneie. The name comes from the oak as a byname for the Palace Guards, and Kaneie was then Assistant Commander of the Right Guards. He was the third son of the regent and chancellor Fujiwara no Morosuke, and would himself rise to be regent and chancellor. The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu, and would later bear Kaneie a son, Michitsuna. Tomoyasu belonged to the provincial governor class and would in time go down to Mutsu as its governor.
It is the eighth year of Tenryaku, early summer, when the cuckoo is heard, and the place is the residence of the author's father Tomoyasu.
While the household hesitated over what reply to make, an old-fashioned, countrified person urged with great deference that an answer must be sent after all, and had it written. That is how this poem came to be composed.
After this reply Kaneie wrote again and again, and still the author did not answer. It is that silence which draws out "Obotsukana oto naki taki no mizu nare ya yukue mo shiranu se o zo tazunuru."

The opening takes up his word for speaking together, and the third line returns his cuckoo unchanged. Where he had made the bird stand for the woman, however, she turns the address back upon Kaneie himself. The second line, a village with no one in it, means a house where no one will answer him, using the familiar convention by which the village stands for the woman's dwelling. The fourth line says that the effort is bound to be wasted, an indirect way of showing that she has no intention of accepting him. The close is a prohibition: do not wear that voice out with use, that is, do not go on courting to no purpose. She picks up his words one by one and refuses him in those very words, a reply faithful to the pattern of poetic exchange.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other