Chirasaji to oshimi okikeru koto no ha o kinagara dani zo kesa wa towamashi

English Translation

Those leaves of your words
you grudged and kept back, lest they
should scatter — this morning,
had you only brought them with
you, you might have asked with them.

Meaning

Those words you grudged and kept back lest they scatter — if you had only carried them here, you might have asked after me with them this morning.

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 autumn in the first year of Tentoku, two days or so after something like a typhoon, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Kaneie had argued that entrusting a message to the wind would only set tongues wagging, and she answered him, in no mood to be beaten, with this.
The narrative closes the four-poem exchange by remarking that people perhaps judged she was entitled to say as much. From here the account moves to the tenth month and "Kotowari no ori to wa miredo sayo fukete kaku wa shigure no furi wa hatsu beki."

She takes his own opening words about keeping them back lest they scatter and returns them intact in her first two lines, quoting his excuse straight back at him. The third line makes those withheld words the object of the sentence. The fourth means: if only you had carried them here — there was no need of any wind, since he might simply have brought them when he came. The close expresses a wish for what did not happen, ending on this morning. It voids his whole argument about whether the wind could be trusted and returns the matter to the point of her first poem; and as the narrative says, she was in no mood to be beaten — the verse takes the exchange and closes it.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other