Hisakata no sora ni kokoro no izu to ieba kage wa soko ni mo tomaru beki kana

English Translation

If you tell me that
my heart goes out into the
wide sky, then surely
its light must be lingering
there with you as well, must it not?

Meaning

If you say that the heart goes out into the wide sky, then surely its light must linger there with you as well.

Commentary

11 Kaneie's Visits Return

In the seventh month, about the time of the wrestling festival, Kaneie sent over a set of old robes and a set of new ones, wrapped up, asking that they be made up for him. The sight of them made the author's head swim. An old-fashioned member of the household thought it a pity, but the more spirited ones gathered and settled it among themselves — the thing was absurd, and better to be spoken ill of for failing to do it — and sent the bundles back. Sure enough, word came that he was having them made up here and there about the town. On his side too the refusal must have seemed very unkind, for more than twenty days passed without any word. Then at some point a letter came, saying that he would like to come but felt too awkward, and that if there were some definite occasion he might venture, timidly. She meant to send no answer, but the household said it was too unkind, and so she sent a poem. A reply came by return, and when the messenger came again she sent another; and Kaneie, smoothing the matter over in words, appeared once more. Gazing out at the garden flowers blooming in their various colors, they exchanged poems that were, on both sides, reproaches. Then, late in the night, when the moon of the twentieth rose above the ridge and he showed signs of leaving, the author composed a poem, and Kaneie answered it and stayed. Afterward there was something like a typhoon, and two days later he came. When the author remarked that an ordinary man would have asked how she had fared in the wind the other day, he seemed to think she had a point, and without any fuss composed a poem. Four poems passed between them, and the author, in no mood to be beaten, answered him back. Perhaps people judged that she was entitled to say as much. Then again, about the tenth month, he made to go out on some business he said could not be put off; the rain was more than could be called a passing shower, and yet he still meant to go, and in her astonishment a poem came to her lips.
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 old-fashioned person who speaks about the robes is an elderly gentlewoman of conservative views.
It is late at night in the seventh month of the first year of Tentoku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
It answers the poem the author made as Kaneie prepared to leave, when the moon of the twentieth had risen above the ridge.
Having composed it, Kaneie stayed. Afterward came something like a typhoon, and when he visited two days later the exchange began with "Koto no ha wa chiri mo ya suru to tomeokite kyō wa mikara mo tou ni ya wa aranu."

The opening is a fixed epithet attached to the sky, and it gives him his foothold for taking up her moon whose heart goes out into the sky. The second and third lines mean: if you say that the heart goes out into the wide sky — her own words, received unchanged. The word in the fourth line means the light of the moon, and he advances the argument that although the moon itself climbs into the sky, its light goes on falling on the ground below. The word for there names a place and at the same time the person addressed, so that the light is said to remain with her. The close means that it must surely remain, gathered up by a final particle of feeling. Reproached for a heart gone absent, he parries by separating the moon from its light; and as the narrative says, having spoken it he stayed — the poem did in fact hold him there.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other