Natsuku beki hito mo hanateba michinoku no umaya kagiri ni naramu to suramu

English Translation

Since you let go even
the one who should be tamed,
is this to be the end,
as the road runs out at the last
post station of Michinoku?

Meaning

Since you let go even the one who ought to have been tamed, is this to be the end of it, as the road runs out at the last station in Michinoku?

Commentary

13 The Exchange of Long Poems

So again there was no night that brought any easing of the heart, and she went on grieving. People who liked to seem knowing would say that a woman still young ought not to go on like this; but Kaneie himself was entirely unruffled, with no notion that any fault might be his, and carried himself as though there were nothing to answer for, so that nothing could be done. The things she had to say grew thicker and thicker, and while she was casting about for some means of setting them out to him point by point, some disagreeable thing would occur, her heart would go cold, and she would find she could not speak at all. Even so, she resolved that she would write it out at length and let him see it, and composed a long poem. The answer came in a long poem too. Afterward a messenger came, and she sent a short poem; Kaneie, whatever he made of it, replied by return, and the exchange went on, ending in four poems built on the figure of a horse.
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. Her father Tomoyasu was at this time in Mutsu as its governor.
It is about winter in the first year of Tentoku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
After the exchange of long poems a messenger came, and she sent this. Kaneie's long poem had closed on the wild horses of the imperial pastures and the colt of Katakai, and she answers in the same figure.
Kaneie, whatever he made of it, replied by return with "Ware ga na o ofuchi no koma no areba koso natsuku ni tsukanu mi to mo shirareme." Two further poems follow, and with them the section closes.

The opening means the one who ought to be tamed, or to be made to grow tame, and it receives his line about having no house that would tame him. The second means that even that person is let go. To his claim that he returns to the old nest because no house will tame him, she answers that it is he who does the letting go. The third line names the province of Mutsu, whose name means the far end of the road, and it sounds as well against her father's presence there as governor. The word in the fourth line means a post station on a highway, a place where horses are changed, so that it belongs with the horse imagery and at the same time names the point where the road runs out. The close piles conjecture on conjecture, reflecting a mind that still cannot measure where things are going. Taking up the horse imagery placed at the end of his long poem and answering it with a place name and a post station, the poem carries the subject of the exchange over from the long form into the short.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other