Ware o nomi tanomu to ieba yukusue no matsu no chiyo o mo kimi koso wa mime

English Translation

Since you tell me that
you rely on me alone,
it is you who shall
look upon the thousand years
of the pine that waits ahead.

Meaning

Since you say you rely on me alone, it is you who will live to see the thousand years of the pine that waits in the days to come.

Commentary

5 Tomoyasu's Departure as Governor of Mutsu

Tomoyasu, the father on whom the author relied, was to set out for Mutsu. The season was one that touches the heart, and she and Kaneie were not yet what could be called familiar with one another; his visits were rare. Her helplessness was beyond comparison. On the day of departure even her father could not hold back his tears, and she who remained was sadder still beyond expression. He could not bring himself to leave until they told him the hour had passed, and then he rolled a letter into the inkstone case, pressed it in, and went out weeping. For some while she had no heart to look at it, but when everyone had gone she steadied herself and opened it, and found a poem written there. She thought it must be meant for the eyes of the one who ought to see it, and, overcome, she left it where it lay. Kaneie came at last, and seeing her sunk in thought without meeting his eyes, spoke to her, then found the letter in the inkstone case and composed his reply. In the days that followed, whenever she thought of her father under a traveller's sky, Kaneie's heart did not seem greatly to be relied upon.
Fujiwara no Tomoyasu was the author's father, a man of the provincial governor class, who in this year went down to Mutsu as its governor. 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 Tomoyasu's daughter, married to Kaneie not long before.
It is late autumn in the eighth year of Tenryaku, a season that touches the heart, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Kaneie, having spoken to the author as she sat sunk in thought, found the letter in the inkstone case, said how moving it was, and wrote this poem at the place of the departure.
After this exchange, the narrative records that although her father's travelling sky was much in her thoughts, Kaneie's heart did not seem greatly to be relied upon. In the twelfth month he went up to Yokawa, and the exchange there leads to "Kōruramu yokawa no mizu ni furu yuki mo waga goto kiete mono wa omowaji."

He takes up the verb of relying and the phrase for what lies ahead exactly as they stood. The opening matches the form of the other poem, so that the one relied upon steps forward to answer in his own person. The third line receives the father's distance yet to come and then turns it, through the fourth line, toward the pine. The word for pine also means to wait, and the tree is a token of long life, so that it carries as well the waiting for a return from the province. A thousand years is the language of felicitation. The close is bound by an emphatic particle: it is you who shall live to see those years. In place of a direct promise about his daughter's future, he answers a father's anxiety with the language of blessing.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other