Iro kawaru kokoro to mireba tsukete tou kaze yuyushiku mo omōyuru kana

English Translation

Seeing it is a
heart whose color changes, I
find even the wind
that carries your asking to me
an ill-omened thing to think of.

Meaning

Since it is a heart whose color changes, even the wind that carries your asking seems to me an ill-omened thing.

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 ninth month of the tenth year of Tenryaku, and the place is the dwelling of the lady called the house of long standing.
It answers the author's "Fuku kaze ni tsukete mo towamu sasagani no kayoishi michi wa sora ni tayu tomo," and the narrative describes it as particularly warm.
After this exchange Kaneie could not refuse the author altogether and showed himself from time to time, and winter came on. With the new year the account moves to "Fumi okishi ura mo kokoro mo aretareba ato o todomenu chidori narikeri."

She takes up the other's offer to send word by the wind exactly as it stood. The opening phrase means that the color of leaves changes, and with it that a person's heart changes; it points at Kaneie's turning. The second line means: since I see it to be such a heart. The third refers directly to the offer to ask after her by way of the wind. The wind of the fourth line is the very thing that scatters leaves and alters their color, so that it belongs to the same family of words as the changing itself. That the wind which should carry a message is also the wind which brings the change of heart is the hinge of the poem. The close means that it comes to seem so of itself, gathered up by a final particle of feeling. In thanking her correspondent while finding an ill omen in the very means of the message, she shows a heart that cannot take comfort plainly.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other