Hamachidori ato no tomari o tazunu tote yukue mo shiranu urami o ya semu

English Translation

To go and seek out
where the shore plover's traces
come to rest at last —
shall I only look on bays
whose whereabouts I cannot know?

Meaning

If I go seeking where the shore plover's traces come to rest, shall I do nothing but gaze at bays — and grieve — whose whereabouts I cannot know?

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 spring in the first year of Tentoku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Kaneie had declared that he left his traces on one bay only, and when the messenger came again she sent back this poem.
With this exchange the section closes. After the scene in which the woman of Machi no Kōji bears a child, the account moves on to the exchange beginning "Ho ni idete iwaji ya sarani ōyoso no nabiku obana ni makasete mo mimu."

She takes back his shore plover, his traces and his bay just as they came. The opening sets the bird in place, and the second line speaks of where its footprints come to rest. That word means a mooring, a place where a journey ends, and belongs with the plover and the bay. The third line means: on the pretext of seeking it out. The fourth says that the whereabouts cannot be known, the same phrase used at the time of the marriage in "Obotsukana oto naki taki no mizu nare ya yukue mo shiranu se o zo tazunuru," now spoken from the opposite side. The word in the close means both looking at a bay and bearing a grudge, and on it the poem turns. The interrogative particle asks whether following the traces would do anything but pile up resentment. His vow that he leaves his mark on her bay alone is not refused but let past, and turned instead into grief.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other