Hana ni yori suku chō koto no yuyushiki ni yoso nagara nite kurashiteshi nari

English Translation

Because of the flowers,
to speak that word of passing
seemed ill-omened, so
I let the whole of that day
go by at a distance from you.

Meaning

Because it seemed ill-omened to speak that word about the flowers, I passed the day at a distance instead.

Commentary

8 The Peach Festival and the Parting from Her Sister

The year turned and the third month came. Peach blossoms and the rest had no doubt been made ready, but though she waited, Kaneie did not appear; and the other lady, who was usually never away from her side, did not come that day either. On the morning of the fourth they all appeared together, and saying that the things she had waited over since the night before were better used than left, they brought out this and that. When the flowers she had prepared with such care were broken off and set out from within, there was written on them, in the hand of one who could not keep her composure, a poem jotted down as if in idle practice. Kaneie, seeing her try to hide it, snatched it up and made his reply. The other lady, hearing this, put into a poem of her own the reason she had stayed away. From this time Kaneie made no secret of his visits to the woman of Machi no Kōji, going openly and on purpose. Once there had been at least some care not to rouse the author's suspicions; now there was nothing to be done, and it was wretched. Moreover, while she was still watching the other lady come and go, they said it was time she moved somewhere easier, and took her away. The author, left behind, felt lonelier still, and the thought that she would hardly see her face again made her truly sad, so that as the carriage was drawn up she sent her a poem. It was the man who answered.
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. The other lady is a sister of the author, whom the text names by that designation alone. The woman of Machi no Kōji likewise appears under that name only, her family never disclosed.
It is the morning of the fourth day of the third month of the tenth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Having listened to the exchange between the author and Kaneie, the other lady gave in this poem her reason for not having appeared on the day of the festival.
After this poem the narrative records that Kaneie now went openly and deliberately to the woman of Machi no Kōji. In time the other lady too is moved away, which brings on the scene of "Nado kakaru nageki wa shigesa masaritsutsu hito nomi kakaru yado to naruramu."

The opening means on account of the flowers, using them as a pretext. The second line refers to the word for passing away, taking up exactly the term Kaneie had used in saying he would let it be known that this was no flower which passes. The third line means ill-omened, something to be avoided, so that she claims to have shunned even the utterance of it. The fourth means while remaining at a distance. The close explains, flatly, that this is how the day was spent. The poem seizes on a single word of another's verse and manufactures out of its ill omen an excuse for her own absence — less an exchange poem than a piece of company wit. Into a scene where the author's resentment and Kaneie's parrying are set against each other, a third voice enters and eases the air.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other