Uguisu no ada nite yukamu yamabe ni mo naku koe kikaba tazunu bakari zo

English Translation

Even to the hills
where the warbler idly goes,
if I should but hear
that crying voice of yours, I
would only come and seek you.

Meaning

Even to the hills where the warbler idly wanders, if I hear that crying voice, I shall simply come and look for you.

Commentary

6 The Birth of Michitsuna and the Woman of Machi no Kōji

The year turned, and in the first month two or three days went by without a visit. The author, meaning to move elsewhere, left word that the poem should be given to him if he came, and went away. A reply came to it; and in the course of such exchanges further troubles gathered, so that she passed the spring and summer unwell. At the end of the eighth month she bore a son. Kaneie's attentions at that time appeared, at least, to be very warm.
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, and the son born this year is Fujiwara no Michitsuna. Tomoyasu had gone down to Mutsu as its governor in the previous year.
It is the first month of the ninth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
It was composed on receiving the poem she had left behind for him.
After this exchange further troubles gathered, she passed the spring and summer unwell, and at the end of the eighth month bore Michitsuna. In the ninth month comes the scene in which she finds a letter written to another woman, and "Utagawashi hoka ni wataseru fumi mireba koko ya todae ni naramu to suramu" is composed.

He takes back her warbler, her crying and her mountains just as they stood. The word in the second line means careless, not to be depended on, and it turns her declaration that she will go wherever she pleases into a piece of caprice, lightly parried. The third line receives her fields and mountains and narrows the destination to the hills alone. The fourth line carries on her play between weeping and birdsong: if he catches that voice. The close declares that he will simply search and come, the emphatic particle giving the statement its finality. Rather than meeting the reproach head on, he undertakes to find her wherever she goes and so smooths the moment over — very much the manner of Kaneie's answers in this period.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other