Ori narade irotsukinikeru momijiba wa toki ni aite zo iro masarikeru

English Translation

Leaves that have taken
their color out of season —
when at last they meet
the time that is their own, then
their color deepens the more.

Meaning

Leaves that colored out of season only deepen in color when their proper time comes at last.

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 the seventh month of the tenth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Kaneie had come and was sitting at a loss without speaking when one of the author's people happened to mention the lower leaves of the earlier rainy season. Hearing it, he answered with this poem.
After this exchange his visits did not cease, and yet no night brought any easing; he came to a house growing more neglected, was out of temper, and sometimes turned straight back. In time the scene with the neighbor follows: "Moshio yaku keburi no sora ni tachinuru wa fusube ya shitsuru kuyuru omoi ni."

The opening means out of the proper season, referring to lower leaves that had colored in summer. The second line takes up her own phrase about a deep color and a turning. The third names the subject again, and the fourth carries it toward the meeting with its time — a phrase meaning to encounter the right moment, to come into one's season, with the emphatic particle governing the closing verb. Her complaint that the leaves had colored out of season is turned into the proposition that color only deepens when the time is right, so that reproach is converted into praise. That he should take the very word she had used for a change of heart and exchange it for a word of flourishing is characteristic of Kaneie's manner in this period.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other