Kimi ga kono machi no minami ni tomi ni osoki haru ni wa ima zo tazune maireru

English Translation

To the south of this
quarter where you are, I have
been slow in coming;
but here at last, in this spring,
I have sought you out and come.

Meaning

To the south of this quarter where you are staying, I have been slow in coming; but here at last, this spring, I have sought you out and come.

Commentary

15 Receiving the Plume Grass from the Prince's Grounds

The year turned to the third of Ōwa, and nothing in particular happened. When a man's heart is at its ordinary temper, everything passes easily enough. From the first month of that year Kaneie was granted the privy chamber. On the day of the lustration, word came from the Prince that he meant to see the procession and would ride in their carriage, with a line added at the edge of his letter. But he was not at his usual residence. Guessing that he might be somewhere about Machi no Kōji, they went there, and were told that the master was within. Borrowing an inkstone, they wrote this and sent it in, and the Prince went out with them at once. After that time had passed, the Prince returned to his usual residence, and when the author called on him the flowers were as fine as she had seen the year before. The plume grass grew in thick clumps and looked very slender, and she asked that if some might be divided off she should like a little of it. Some while later, going out to the riverbank, she found the Prince's house lay on the same road, and saying that this must be the place, she sent a page in. When the boy made to go up to the house, she told him it was no fit occasion, that he should merely tell the attendants of the plume grass she had spoken of before, and drove on past. The boy being an unreliable one, he was back before long, saying that the plume grass had come from the Prince. There it was, handsomely dug up and set in what is called a long chest, with a sheet of blue paper tied to it, and when she opened it there was a poem. It was charming enough; but what reply was she to make? Considering how long it had taken her to forget, it might be as well to leave it. And yet she wondered how it would look, then and afterward.
Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, and from the first month of that year was granted the privy chamber; 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.
It is the day of the lustration in the third year of Ōwa, and the place is the house about Machi no Kōji where the Prince was staying.
Having gone to take the Prince up in the carriage for the viewing, they found him not at his usual residence but here. An inkstone was borrowed, and this was written and sent in. The narrative does not say who composed it; it records only that after the poem the Prince went out with them at once.
After that time had passed, the Prince returned to his usual residence, and the account moves to the author's request for the plume grass.

The first two lines mean: to the south of this quarter where you are, taking straight into the poem the place where the Prince happened to be staying. The quarter meant is the neighborhood of Machi no Kōji, where they had guessed he might be after failing to find him. The third line means that the coming was slow, referring to the time lost in calling at the residence and then hunting out where he was. The fourth line means that now at last, in this spring, and its emphatic particle governs the verb at the close. That verb is the humble word for coming into a great person's presence, suited to an address of this kind. The whole poem simply reports how his lodging was found — a greeting for the moment and nothing more — and the circumstance that it was dashed off with a borrowed inkstone accounts well enough for its lightness. The base text is disturbed here, and the reading of the third line is not settled.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other