Hito shirezu imaya imaya to matsu hodo ni kaeri konu koso wabishikarikere

English Translation

Unknown to others
I wait — now, now, I tell myself —
and that no answer
comes returning back to me:
this is what grieves me so.

Meaning

Waiting in secret, telling myself it will come now, now — and no answer returns to me. That is what makes it hard to bear.

Commentary

3 The Marriage to Kaneie Is Settled

Letters came from Kaneie again and again, and still the author did not answer. Her father Tomoyasu said it was a presumption to leave him waiting and that a proper reply ought to be sent, so he had a suitable person write one on her behalf. Kaneie took this in earnest and was delighted, and letters passed frequently between the houses; but he complained that the hand was not hers and asked repeatedly for an answer written by the lady herself. Each time, the household put him off with another substitute's hand, and the months went by in nothing but formal correspondence. Autumn came, and through the exchange of poems the two were drawn on toward marriage.
Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke and at this time Assistant Commander of the Right Guards; he would rise to be regent and chancellor. The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu, a man of the provincial governor class who would go down to Mutsu as its governor at the end of this year.
It is the eighth year of Tenryaku, from early summer into autumn, and the place is the residence of the author's father Tomoyasu.
Word had been sent that an answer would now come from her side, and this poem arrived at once, as though he had understood that already.
It was this poem that moved her father to insist on a reply, which was then written by a suitable person on her behalf. Kaneie was delighted and letters passed often between them, until his dissatisfaction with the borrowed hand came out in "Hamachidori ato mo nagisa ni fumi mireba ware o kosu nami uchi yaketsuramu."

The opening means without others knowing, in secret, and describes a man hiding his waiting from watchful eyes. The repeated phrase in the second line renders both the length of the wait and the restlessness in it. The fourth line says that no reply comes back, and the verb for returning carries within it the word for an answering letter. The close is bound by an emphatic particle that resolves in the exclamatory form, stating the hardship outright. After the layered metaphors of "Obotsukana oto naki taki no mizu nare ya yukue mo shiranu se o zo tazunuru," this poem turns away from ornament and simply shows the figure of a man waiting.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other