Kagiri ka to omoitsutsu koshi hodo yori mo nakanaka naru wa wabishikarikeri

English Translation

Harder than that road
I travelled, thinking as I
went that it might be
the end — harder than that is
this being neither one thing nor the other.

Meaning

Harder than the road I travelled thinking it might be the end is this state of being neither one thing nor the other.

Commentary

20 Kaneie's Illness

About the third month of the third year of Kōhō, Kaneie fell ill while he was staying with her, and she watched with great pity as he lost himself in a pain past bearing. He said that he would have liked nothing better than to remain, but that everything would be awkward there, and so he would go back to the other house; that she must not think him unkind; that what was hardest was the sudden feeling that he had not long to live; and that saddest of all was to have no one who would remember him as a man who had cared. And he wept. Seeing it she could take in nothing more, and wept so bitterly herself that he said: do not weep, it makes the pain worse; the hardest thing in this world is to be parted like this when one does not look for it; what will you do? you cannot live in the world alone. So he talked on from where he lay, and wept. He called this one and that one of the household to him and left his instructions. At last, when the carriage had been drawn out a little and the ox was being yoked, she looked across and saw that he had turned back to where he had been and was gazing steadily at her; and as the carriage was drawn away she found herself looking back again and again in spite of herself. Then, about midday, a letter came. After this and that he had written a poem, and she answered it. He was still in pain, but bore it and appeared within two or three days; and as he came gradually back to himself, his visits returned to their usual measure.
Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, and would rise to be regent and chancellor. The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu.
It is about the third month of the third year of Kōhō, and the place is the house to which Kaneie had withdrawn.
Having fallen ill and left the author, Kaneie sent this at midday at the end of a letter written on this and that.
The author answered with "Ware mo sazo nodokeki toko no ura narade kaeru namiji wa ayashikarikeri." He was still in pain, but bore it and came within two or three days, and by degrees recovered.

The opening means: wondering whether this is the end, and it takes up what he had said at the parting, that he did not think he had long. The second line means that he travelled thinking so, referring to the road on which he kept looking back as the carriage drew away. The third sets up a comparison and hands on to the fourth, where the phrase means half-way, neither one thing nor the other — the state of a man who is neither dying nor recovering. The close means that it is hard to bear, its auxiliary lending the note of a thing newly understood. To say that the time of living apart is worse than the journey taken in expectation of death is the poem's whole argument, and it is built on that comparison alone, with neither pivot nor related words. That it was sent from a sickbed accounts well enough for the absence of ornament.

Author

Fujiwara no Kaneie

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other