あふ坂の關やなになり近けれど
越えわびぬればなげきてぞ經る
越えわびぬればなげきてぞ經る
- Roma-ji
-
Ōsaka no seki ya nani nari chikakeredo koewabinureba nagekite zo furu
- English Translation
-
The barrier that stands
at Ōsaka — what is it?
Though it lies so near,
I cannot cross it, and so
I pass my days lamenting.
- Meaning
- What is this barrier at Ōsaka? It lies close at hand, and yet I cannot cross it, and so my days go by in lamentation.
- 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 autumn in the eighth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the residence of the author's father Tomoyasu.
After being turned aside by "Takasago no onoe watari ni sumau tomo shika samenu beki me to wa kikanu o," he let some time pass and then sent this poem.
The author answered with "Koewaburu ōsaka yori mo oto ni kiku nakoso o kataki seki to shiranamu." Letters continued to pass between them, and in time the marriage was concluded, leading on to the exchange that begins with "Yūgure no nagare kuruma o matsu hodo ni namida ōi no kawa to koso nare."
The barrier of the opening line is the familiar play by which the place name carries the verb for meeting, and it stands as the emblem of whatever keeps lovers apart. The second line asks what this barrier can possibly be, a question close to rhetorical, expressing the frustration of not knowing what prevents their meeting. The third line points to a house near enough that meeting should be easy, and is not. The verb in the fourth line means to be unable to do a thing, however one tries. The close is bound by an emphatic particle and states that his days go by in lamentation. Borrowing a place name to voice the grief of not meeting, the poem keeps to the settled pattern of courtship verse.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Kaneie
- Source
- Kagero Nikki
- Other
-
- Though I live in a village where no stag's voice comes, how strange it is that I should meet with such an eye — the eye of never meeting.
- Even were I to dwell near Takasago's peak, I have never heard of an eye so startling that it would wake one out of sleep.
- More than Ōsaka, which you say you cannot cross, know that Nakoso — the barrier heard of in rumor — is the harder one to pass.
- At dusk I wait for the carriage flowing toward me, and in that waiting my tears have swollen until they are the Ōi river.