Soko ni sae karu to iu naru makomogusa ikanaru sawa ni ne o todomuramu

English Translation

The wild rice, they say,
has withered even down to
the water's bottom —
in what marsh, then, can it be
that its roots have come to rest?

Meaning

They say the wild rice has withered even at the water's bottom. In what marsh, then, has it settled its roots?

Commentary

9 The Wild Rice Grass; Kaneie Grows Distant from the Other House

After the other lady had gone, the author's days became, as she had foreseen, a matter of lying down and rising alone. There was nothing in her circumstances out of the ordinary; only Kaneie's heart would not answer to her wishes, and that was the hardship. Hearing that his visits to the other house too had ceased, and since letters passed between them, she sent a poem there around the third or fourth of the fifth month, and an answer came. In the sixth month the long rains fell heavily from the first of the month, and gazing out she spoke a poem to herself. The seventh month came, and while she was still turning over whether it might not be better for the visits to stop altogether than to have him come so rarely, there was a day when Kaneie appeared. He said nothing and seemed at a loss. When one of her people happened to mention the matter of the lower leaves, he heard it and composed a poem. So his visits did not cease, and yet no night brought any easing of the heart; he came to a house growing more neglected, was out of temper, and sometimes turned back at once. A neighbor who knew how things stood addressed a poem to him as he was leaving, and they teased one another over it. About that time he stayed away particularly long, and after some ten days a letter came. The author untied the small bow's arrow it spoke of, took it down, and sent a poem with it. Then, in the ninth month, hearing that the visits to the house where she knew there were many children had ceased entirely, she felt for them the more and wrote, and a particularly warm reply came. Kaneie could not refuse her altogether and showed himself from time to time, and winter came on. Lying down and rising she had only the little child to play with, and a line of old verse came unbidden to her lips. The year turned, and in spring Kaneie left behind a letter he had been carrying about to read, and sent a woman to fetch it. The author wrote a poem on the paper in which she wrapped it back. A reply came by return, and when the messenger came again she sent one more.
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 one called the house of long standing, and elsewhere the house where there are said to be many children, is the woman Kaneie had long visited; the text gives no name.
It is around the third or fourth of the fifth month of the tenth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Hearing that the visits had ceased not only to her own house but to the house of long standing as well, and since letters passed between them, she sent this poem there.
The answer was "Makomogusa karu to wa yodo no sawa nare ya ne o todomu chō sawa wa soko to ka." Exchanges with the same correspondent recur later, at "Fuku kaze ni tsukete mo towamu sasagani no kayoishi michi wa sora ni tayu tomo."

The first two lines mean that the plant is said to have withered even at the bottom of the water; since wild rice roots beneath the surface, for the bottom itself to wither is no ordinary matter. The verb there means both to wither and to grow distant, and that single word is the hinge of the poem, naming Kaneie's withdrawal from both houses at once. The grass of the third line stands for Kaneie: a plant that ought never to leave the water's edge has moved its roots somewhere else. The fourth line asks in what marsh, inquiring after his whereabouts. The close conjectures where the roots have settled, and ends on that question. She names no one and builds the whole question out of water-plant imagery — a restrained manner well suited to an exchange between two women in the same position.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other