Yo o fu tomo chigiri okiteshi naka yori wa itodo yuyushiki koto mo miyuramu

English Translation

Though the years go by,
it is out of a bond that
was pledged beforehand
that such ill-omened matters
must appear the more to you.

Meaning

Though the years go by, it is precisely because ours is a bond pledged beforehand that ill-omened things must show themselves to you all the more.

Commentary

14 Kaneie's Friendship with Prince Akiakira

On the fifth of the seventh month, while the author was shut in for a long period of abstinence, word came from Kaneie that the day after next would be the meeting slope. She answered with a poem, and — whether he thought the tone had altered — Kaneie seemed to take a little more notice of her, and the months went by so. The woman of Machi no Kōji, whom she had found insufferable, was now, she heard, a laughing-stock, and that eased her mind. As for what had gone before, there was nothing to be done: hard as it was, it must be the poverty of her own destiny, she told herself, turning the matter over this way and that as the time passed. Kaneie, after his years as lesser counselor, rose to the fourth rank, left the privy chamber, and at the appointments received an office not to his liking. He seemed to find the world thoroughly distasteful, and since he went nowhere but on his rounds of visits, he would spend two or three days quite at leisure. About that time a poem came from the Prince who was head of that unwelcome office, and Kaneie answered it; three exchanges passed between them on the figure of thread. Later, from about the twentieth of the fifth month, the author moved to the place she had used before in order to avoid a period of mourning, and the Prince had moved to a house separated from hers by only a fence. Rain fell heavily into the sixth month, and everyone must have been shut in by it; her own lodging being a poor one, there was a commotion over the leaking roof, and a poem came from the Prince. Exchanges on the long rains and the muddy road of love followed, and after them others on the pink and the shore plover.
Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, and by this time had passed his years as lesser counselor and risen to the fourth rank; he would rise to be regent and chancellor. The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The Prince is the head of the office in which Kaneie served as deputy; the text gives no name, and he is taken to be Prince Akiakira. The woman of Machi no Kōji likewise appears under that name only.
It is the Ōwa era, and the places are the author's dwelling and the Prince's residence.
It answers the Prince, who had written of ending without a bitter knot and then added that he was stopping on account of the ill omen.
The narrative closes the three thread exchanges with a word of humble report. Afterward, at the house to which the author moved to avoid the mourning, the exchanges with the Prince beyond the fence begin.

The opening means: even as the years pass. The second line means a bond pledged in advance, and it carries into the third: precisely because the tie is so deep. The fourth means all the more ill-omened, receiving the Prince's own use of a word to be shunned. The close is conjectural, letting the matter pass: such things must appear so to you. Where the Prince had used the word for ending and then checked himself, Kaneie answers that it is the depth of the bond which makes ill omens catch the eye, and so settles the business gently. He uses none of the thread imagery here, answering on the sense alone, and in doing so brings three rounds of banter to a natural close.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other