Izuko ni mo nagame no sosogu koro nareba yo ni furu hito wa nodokekaraji o

English Translation

It is the season
when the long rain pours everywhere,
and so whoever
passes his days in this world
can hardly be at ease.

Meaning

It is the season when the long rain pours down everywhere; whoever passes his days in this world can hardly be at ease in 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 place is the temporary lodging to which the author moved to avoid the mourning.
It answers the Prince, who had made light of the commotion over her leaking roof.
He pressed on with "Ame no shita sawagu kokoro mo ōmizu ni tare mo koiji ni nurezarame ya wa," and the exchange continued.

She takes back his long rain and his pouring. The opening means everywhere, setting up the retort that she is not the only one troubled by the wet. The second line resets his words unchanged. The verb in the fourth line means both to pass one's days and for rain to fall, and the poem turns on it: one who lives out his life in the world, and one who is being rained upon, are named at once, so that a single word ties the scene of the long rains to the condition of a human life. The close means that such a person can hardly be at ease, and its final particle is adversative and left hanging, so that the implication remains — you who find it amusing are no better off. Laughed at for her difficulty, she answers that everyone is in the same case and lets the matter pass: a reply that gives no offense to a man of far higher rank.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other