Ima wa tote hikiizuru koto no ne o kikeba uchikaeshite mo nao zo kanashiki

English Translation

Hearing the koto
sounded now that the time is
past, I find that though
the strings are struck and struck again,
the sorrow does not lift.

Meaning

Hearing the koto sounded now that the season of mourning is past, I find that however often the strings are struck again, the sorrow does not lift.

Commentary

18 The First Anniversary of Her Mother's Death

So, in her unsettled way, she passed the autumn and the winter. In the same house there lived a brother of hers and a woman who seemed to be an aunt. She thought of that woman as a parent, and yet she still longed for the past and wept the nights through. The year turned to the second of Kōhō, and when spring and summer had passed it was time for the final rite, which this once was held at that same mountain temple. Remembering how it had been, she found it more painful still. When the officiant began by saying that he had not come there merely out of a wish to seek the autumn hills — that it was rather to expound the meaning of the sutra in the very place where the dead had closed her eyes — she could take in nothing more, and remembered nothing of what followed. When all that had to be done was finished, they returned. The mourning was then to be put off, and while the dove-gray garments, down to the fans, were being purified, a poem came into her mind; but it made her weep so bitterly that she said nothing of it to anyone. When the memorial days were over and she was as idle as ever, she wiped the koto and ran her hand over it, not so much playing as touching it, and thinking how the season of restraint was past, and how sad and fleeting it all was — and then a poem came from the other side of the house. There was nothing remarkable in it, but thinking of what it meant she wept the more, and made her reply.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The one who died is her mother, whose name the diary does not give. In the same house lived a brother of hers and a woman who seemed to be an aunt, whom the author regarded as a parent. Who it was that sent the poem from the other side is not stated in the text.
It is the second year of Kōhō, after the memorial days for her mother were over, and the place is the author's dwelling.
The author, idle, had wiped the koto and was running her hand over it rather than playing; hearing the sound, someone in the same house sent this from the other side.
The narrative calls it a poem with nothing remarkable in it, and then adds that thinking of what it meant made her weep the more — leading to her own "Naki hito wa otozure mo sede koto no o o tachishi tsukihi zo kaeri kinikeru."

The opening means: now that it may be allowed, referring to the end of the period of mourning. The second line means to begin playing. The third takes as its starting point the very sound coming from the other side of the house. The verb in the fourth line means both to strike the strings again and to go over a thing in the mind, and the poem turns on it: play as often as one will, the sorrow does not lift, and think it over as often as one will, it is sad still. The close is bound by an emphatic particle and states the sadness plainly. As the narrative is careful to say, there is nothing remarkable in it; the ornament is slight and the poem is little more than a passing thought. That the author nonetheless wept the more is because she learned from it that the sound which should have marked the end of mourning was heard as sorrowfully by others in the house — the poem worked upon her quite apart from its merits.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other