Hikitomuru mono to wa nashi ni ōsaka no seki no kuchime no ne ni zo sobotsuru

English Translation

There was no way to
hold her back; and at the sound
of Ōsaka's barrier,
at its worn and rotted grain,
my sleeves are wet through and through.

Meaning

There was no holding her back; and at the sound of the barrier at Ōsaka, at its worn and rotted grain, my sleeves are soaked through.

Commentary

19 Her Sister's Departure

Of all the people about her, the one she most relied upon had been due since that summer to go down to a distant province; since it had been settled that she would go once the mourning was over, she was now to set out. To think of it was more than the word forlorn could carry. On the last day, the day of departure, the author went over to see her. A set of robes and a few small things had been put into a pair of inkstone boxes, and the place was in a great noisy bustle, but neither she nor the one going could meet the other's eyes; they sat facing one another, barely holding back their tears. Everyone, please bear up — they say it is very ill-omened — someone said. Thinking that to watch her get into the carriage would be past enduring, she was told from her own house that she should come back quickly, since someone had arrived; and as the carriage was drawn up and her sister got in, the one departing wore a small robe of double-dyed indigo, while the one remaining had on only a thin gown of russet, and they exchanged them and parted. It was about the tenth of the ninth month. Even after she came home she wept so that they scolded her, asking why she must be so ill-omened. Then, thinking that by yesterday and today the traveler must be somewhere near the barrier hills, she was gazing out at a moon of great beauty when, from the other side of the house, someone who had also risen and was touching a koto sent her a poem. It was because this too was a person who must feel the same. She answered it, and while her thoughts went on following the traveler the year turned.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The one who departed is a woman on whom the author relied; the text gives no name. Neither does it say who it was that sent the poem from the other side of the house.
It is a moonlit night about the tenth of the ninth month in the second year of Kōhō, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Thinking that by yesterday and today the traveler must be near the barrier hills, she was gazing at the moon when this poem came from the other side of the house, where someone had also risen and was touching a koto.
The narrative explains that this too was a person who must feel the same. The author answered with "Omoiyaru ōsakayama no seki no ne wa kiku ni mo sode zo kuchime tsukinuru," and while her thoughts followed the traveler the year turned.

The first two lines mean that there was no means of holding her back, stating plainly the position of one who could only see her off. The third names the barrier crossed by travelers going east, that is, the place the departed woman must now be passing. That same barrier served earlier, in the courtship exchange "Ōsaka no seki ya nani nari chikakeredo koewabinureba nagekite zo furu," as the emblem of whatever keeps lovers from meeting. Here it appears not as a figure but as an actual gate on an actual road, and one can see how the working of the word has changed within the diary. The fourth line is disturbed in the base text and neither its form nor its sense is settled, though a reading that takes it as the rotted grain of the barrier house comes most easily. The word in the close means sound, suiting a poem made while touching a koto, and the verb means to be soaked through; the emphatic particle deepens the measure of the weeping.

Source

Kagero Nikki

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