Omou koto ōi no kawa no yūgure wa kokoro ni mo arazu nagare koso sure

English Translation

So many thoughts — at
dusk upon the Ōi,
they flow of themselves,
not by any will of mine,
and cannot be held back.

Meaning

My thoughts are many, and at dusk on the Ōi they flow away against my will, as tears will.

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.
It was composed in answer to Kaneie's complaint that his tears had become the river Ōi.
After this exchange, on the morning of some third day, there came "Shinonome ni okikeru sora ni omōede ayashiku tsuyu to kiekaeritsuru."

She takes his river, his dusk and the name itself and hands them back. The first line means the thoughts that weigh upon the heart, and by joining them to the river's name she turns the sense of many, which he had applied to his tears, toward the multitude of her own cares. The fourth line means against one's own will. The verb at the close joins the flowing of water to the falling of tears, so that weeping comes of itself. The final construction matches the emphatic form he had used, answering him shape for shape. The wit lies in shifting his pivot word to a different sense in returning it, and as an exchange the two poems balance well. Some texts give a different reading in the fourth line.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other