Uragakure miru koto kataki ato naraba shiohi o matamu karaki waza kana

English Translation

If these are tracks that
the bay hides, and hard to see,
then I shall wait for
the tide to fall — a bitter,
a salt-bitter business it is.

Meaning

If these are tracks the bay hides and one can hardly see, then I shall wait for the tide to fall — and a bitter, salt-bitter business it is.

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 about the sixth month, and the place is the temporary lodging to which the author moved to avoid the mourning.
Since the Prince's letter had been written in a woman's hand, a man's hand would not do for the answer, and the author composed and sent this herself.
The Prince replied with "Ura mo naku fumi yaru ato o watatsuumi no shio no hiru ma mo nani ni ka wa semu," and with that the exchanges of this section close.

She takes back his bay and his tracks. The opening means hidden by the bay and so invisible, receiving unchanged his claim that the water has risen and the tracks cannot be seen. The word for tracks in the third line carries, as in his poem, both footprints and a hand of writing, so that the line means: if it is a hand hard to make out. Given that his letter had come in a woman's hand, it is also a light thrust at his having written in a script not his own. The fourth line means she will wait for the tide to ebb and the tracks to reappear, keeping within the imagery of water while turning it toward the waiting for word. The word in the close means salt to the taste and also hard to bear, working as a related word to the tide while naming the hardship of one who waits. Nothing is allowed outside the scene, and the grief is carried entirely within it — a manner of reply that gives no offense to a man of far higher rank.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other