Komauge ni narimasaritsutsu natsukenu o konawa taezu zo tanomi kinikeru

English Translation

Growing ever more
reluctant to come, and never
to be tamed at all —
and still it was the thin rope,
unbroken, that I relied on.

Meaning

You grow ever more reluctant to come, and are not to be tamed; and still it was that thin rope, unbroken, on which I relied.

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.
It answers Kaneie's claim that he is simply of a kind that never quite attaches itself.
Kaneie replied with "Shirakawa no seki no sekeba ya komauku te amata no hi o ba hikiwataritsuru," and with that the section closes. The account then moves on to the passage on his friendship with Prince Akiakira.

The word in the opening means being disinclined to come, finding the journey a trouble, and it sounds within itself the word for a colt; that single word is the hinge on which all four poems turn. The second line means growing steadily more so, of visits that recede year by year. The third means that he is not to be tamed, taking over the very claim he had made. The word in the fourth line is the thin rope used to tether a horse, and it gives shape at once to the frailty of whatever holds him. To say that she has leaned on nothing but a thin rope that has not yet broken answers his near-boast about being impossible to tether. The close is bound by an emphatic particle and keeps the tone of a realization: that this is what she has been relying on all this while. Entrusted to so humble a thing as a horse's tether, the reproach is conveyed without ever being spoken.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other