Hamachidori ato mo nagisa ni fumi mireba ware o kosu nami uchi yaketsuramu

English Translation

Like a shore that keeps
no plover's tracks upon it,
I see this writing —
some wave that overtook me
must have washed the traces out.

Meaning

Seeing a letter that keeps no trace of your hand, as a shore keeps no print of the plover, I wonder whether some wave that outstripped me has washed those traces away.

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.
A reply had been sent, written at her father's direction by a suitable person, and Kaneie received it in earnest delight and wrote often thereafter. This poem was enclosed in one of those letters, complaining that the answer had not come in the lady's own hand.
To this too the household replied with a borrowed hand as before. Kaneie wrote again and pressed the same complaint in other words: "Izure to mo wakanu kokoro wa soetaredo kotabi wa saki ni minu hito no gari."

The plover of the opening is the bird that leaves prints along the water's edge, and the word for its tracks in the second line also means the tracks of a brush, a hand of writing. The word in the third line means both to tread and a letter. Plover, water's edge and wave are all related words, and the image of prints in the sand erased by the sea is laid over his complaint that a substitute's hand has erased hers. The wave that outstrips him is whoever has stepped in ahead of him, that is, the person who wrote in her place. The closing auxiliary conjectures about a present cause, leaving the tone of a question rather than an accusation. The reproach is entrusted entirely to the scene, and never spoken directly.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other