Kōruramu yokawa no mizu ni furu yuki mo waga goto kiete mono wa omowaji

English Translation

Even the snow that
falls on Yokawa's water,
frozen by this hour,
cannot melt away as I
do, nor brood as I have brooded.

Meaning

The snow falling on the waters of Yokawa, frozen by now, cannot melt away in longing as I do.

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 the twelfth month of the eighth year of Tenryaku. Kaneie has gone up to Yokawa on some business, and the author is at her own dwelling.
Kaneie wrote from Yokawa that he was shut in by snow and that there was much he longed for, and this poem was sent in reply.
With it the eighth year of Tenryaku closes, the narrative noting only that the year passed fleetingly away. The new year brings the scene of "Shirarene ba mi o uguisu no furiidetsutsu nakite koso yuke no ni mo yama ni mo."

The opening conjectures about a present condition, imagining the state of a place far off in the mountains. The second line names the district on Mount Hiei where Kaneie is staying, taking the place itself into the poem. The third line picks up his own words about being shut in by snow, making his letter the material of her verse. The fourth line lays the melting of snow over her own sense of fading away, and freezing, water, snow and melting all belong to one family of words. The close is a negative conjecture: not even the snow can brood as she does. Against his profession of longing she asserts that her own is the deeper, and beneath it lies the loneliness left by her father's departure.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other