Kashiwagi no mori no shitakusa kuregoto ni nao tanome to ya moru o miru miru

English Translation

The grass beneath the
oak grove: at each fall of dusk
am I told to hope
once more — while I watch the rain
come leaking through the branches?

Meaning

Am I, the undergrowth beneath the oak grove, told to go on hoping at every nightfall, while I watch the rain come leaking through?

Commentary

4 Exchanges with Kaneie

After the marriage was settled, the author stayed for a time at a temporary lodging. Kaneie visited her there and sent a letter the next morning. In the ninth month a run of days of abstinence kept him away for two nights together, and only letters passed. His visits then grew infrequent; on a rainy evening he sent word that he would come, and in the tenth month he pleaded abstinence as a reason for staying away. Poems were exchanged on each occasion, and the author's helplessness as the one who waits accumulates through them. While these exchanges continue, the day approaches when her father Tomoyasu must go down to Mutsu.
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, between the ninth and tenth months, at dusk on a day of rain, and the place is the author's own dwelling.
Some time had passed and Kaneie's visits had grown infrequent when, at dusk on a rainy day, he may have sent word that he would come — so the narrative reports it — and this poem was sent to him.
Kaneie made no reply but came himself and turned the matter aside. In the tenth month there followed "Nagekitsutsu kaesu koromo no tsuyukeki ni itodo sora sae shigure sou ramu."

The oak of the opening is the byname of the Palace Guards and stands for Kaneie, who held office there. It answers the narrative's own way of naming him at the time of his courtship, a man of the high oak branches, and shows how consistently the diary keeps to that designation. The undergrowth of the second line is the grass that grows beneath tall trees, figuring the author in her dependent position. The third line means at every falling of night, that is, evening after evening spent waiting. The fourth asks whether she is to go on hoping even so, the particle giving the question something close to the force of a rhetorical one. The verb at the close means to leak, and some read into it the sense of guarding, so that rain comes leaking from the very tree that ought to shelter her. The repetition at the end fixes the image of one who can only watch while she waits.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other