Hachisuba no tama to naruramu musubu ni mo sode nure masaru kesa no tsuyu kana

English Translation

Dew that will become
a jewel on the lotus leaf —
and as I gather,
as I knot it, my sleeves grow
wetter with this morning's dew.

Meaning

Dew that will become a jewel upon the lotus leaf: as I gather it, as I knot the surplice, my sleeves grow wetter still with this morning's dew.

Commentary

17 The Death of Her Mother

Her mother had died, and more than ten days had passed in the mountain temple. Hearing the monks talking among themselves between the invocations, she caught this: that there is a place where the dead may be seen quite plainly; that if one goes near they vanish, but from a distance they are visible; and that it lies in some province or other and is called the Isle of Mimiraku. Listening to them say it, one after another, she longed to know more, and in her grief a poem rose to her lips. Her brother, hearing it, answered her through his tears. Meanwhile Kaneie only looked in without dismounting and asked her people how she did, and she had no heart for anything. At length the day came for them all to leave the temple. When they had come there she had carried her mother, who lay against her knees, hoping only to make her comfortable, and there had been a hope in her that sustained her; now she rode back in perfect ease, absurdly at leisure, and the whole road was misery. Getting down and looking about her was misery past speaking. The plants she and her mother had gone out together to have tended had been left to themselves since the illness began, and had run wild and were blooming in every color. Since the necessary arrangements were all divided among the others, she had nothing to do but sit in idleness and brood, and only a line of old verse kept coming to her lips. Then she composed a poem. Kaneie, thinking perhaps how forlorn she seemed, came more often than before. When something was sent to the temple, she wrote a poem to go with a surplice. And the elder brother of the man who received that surplice was a monk too, one on whose prayers she had relied; hearing that he had suddenly died, she wondered what his brother must feel, and was herself much grieved. Troubled that those she leaned upon should go this way, she sent condolences again and again. For reasons of his own the man had been in service at Unrin'in. When the forty-nine days were over she sent him a poem. So, in the wretchedness of her own heart, her thoughts went out over field and mountain alike.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The one who died is her mother, whose name the diary does not give. The brother is named in the text by that word alone. Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, and would rise to be regent and chancellor. The recipient of the surplice was a monk of the temple; his elder brother was also a monk, in service at Unrin'in.
It is not long after her mother's death in the first year of Kōhō, and the places are the author's dwelling and the temple where the memorial services were held.
It was written to go with a surplice when something was sent to the temple.
The elder brother of the man who received that surplice was also a monk, one on whose prayers she had relied, and hearing that he had suddenly died she sent condolences again and again. When the forty-nine days were over she sent "Omoiki ya kumo no hayashi ni uchisutete sora no keburi ni tatamu mono to wa."

The lotus leaf of the opening belongs to the imagery of the Pure Land, and that single word carries the hope that the dead may be reborn upon the lotus. The second line describes dew gathering into a jewel on the leaf, and lays over it the wish that she may become such a jewel and be born there. The verb in the third line means both that dew forms and that a cord is knotted, so that the actual work of preparing the surplice to be given enters the poem itself. The fourth line means that her sleeves grow wetter still. In the close, the word for this morning is also the word for a surplice, and on it the whole poem turns: the dew of the morning and the dew that settles on the surplice, which is to say her tears, become one. As a poem to accompany an offering it strings together lotus, dew and jewel, all of the Pure Land, and then takes that dew over into her own weeping to close — mourning and petition brought into accord within a single verse.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other