Makomogusa karu to wa yodo no sawa nare ya ne o todomu chō sawa wa soko to ka

English Translation

To cut the wild rice —
is that the marsh at Yodo?
And the marsh where, they
say, its roots have come to rest —
is it there, so I am told?

Meaning

Is it the marsh at Yodo where the wild rice is cut? And the marsh where its roots are said to rest — is that the place, so they tell me?

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 dwelling of the lady called the house of long standing.
It is the answer to the author's "Soko ni sae karu to iu naru makomogusa ikanaru sawa ni ne o todomuramu." A marginal note in the base text assigns this poem to Kaneie, but since the narrative speaks of letters passing with the house of long standing, it is better understood as coming from that correspondent.
After this exchange, in the long rains of the sixth month, the author speaks to herself "Waga yado no nageki no shita wa iro fukaku utsuroinikeri nagame furu ma ni." Exchanges with the same correspondent recur in the ninth month.

She takes back the wild rice, the marsh and the settling of roots exactly as they were given. The opening resets the other's word, and the second line answers with the verb for cutting. Where the author had made one sound carry both withering and growing distant, this poem takes the same sound as cutting instead, and the handing back and forth of the pivot is the whole point of the exchange. The place named in the second line was known for its water plants, and it also sounds the word for water that stagnates, suggesting a condition with nowhere to go. The third line turns the question back: is it that marsh, then? The closing lines report at second hand that the roots are said to rest there, so that she answers only that she has heard as much and knows nothing for certain. Question is met with question, and by refusing to assert anything the poem preserves the awkward distance between two women in the same case.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other