Tsurezure no nagame no uchi ni sosoguramu koto no suji koso okashikarikere

English Translation

In these idle days
of long rain, the way of it —
how it must be pouring
in on you over there — is
a thing of some delight.

Meaning

In these idle days of long rain, the way of the thing — how it must be pouring in upon you over there — has a certain charm to it.

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 from about the twentieth of the fifth month into the sixth, and the places are the temporary lodging to which the author moved to avoid the mourning, and the Prince's house beyond a single fence.
Rain had fallen heavily into the sixth month and everyone was shut in by it. The author's lodging was a poor one, and there was a commotion over the leaking roof; the Prince, catching wind of it, sent this poem.
The author answered with "Izuko ni mo nagame no sosogu koro nareba yo ni furu hito wa nodokekaraji o," and exchanges on the long rains and the muddy road of love followed.

The opening means idle, with nothing to be done, describing days spent shut indoors. The word in the second line means the long rains and also gazing out, a pair used again and again elsewhere in this diary. The third line conjectures that the rain must be pouring in, guessing at the leaking roof beyond the fence. The word for the way of a thing in the fourth line means the course or particulars of a matter, but since the same word is used of threads and of strings, it keeps an echo of the thread exchanges just concluded, and may be read as sounding the strings of a zither. The close is bound by an emphatic particle and declares the thing charming. The content amounts to finding a neighbor's trouble amusing, but with only a fence between the houses, and the lady in a poor makeshift lodging, it reads as a piece of friendly teasing. It is also the first poem exchanged directly between the author and the Prince.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other