Ware mo sazo nodokeki toko no ura narade kaeru namiji wa ayashikarikeri

English Translation

I too felt it so.
It was no quiet Bay of
Toko, no calm bed;
and the wave-road you took home
was a thing to trouble me.

Meaning

I felt it so as well. It was no quiet Bay of Toko, no calm bed; and the wave-road by which you went home troubled me.

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 author's dwelling.
It answers his complaint that living apart was harder than the journey; and with it she sent word that he still seemed so much in pain that she was uneasy even now — half a thing, as he had said.
He was still in pain, but bore it and came within two or three days, recovering by degrees until his visits returned to their usual measure.

The opening means: I too felt it so, taking up his statement whole. The place named in the second line is a bay in Bizen used in poetry, and it carries within it the word for a bed; a quiet bay, that is, a quiet bed, is what he did not have, since he had to go home in his sickness. The third line negates it and hands on to the fourth, where the road he took is a road of waves. It was in fact a road taken by carriage, but having produced the bay she turns even that road into a seascape. The close means troubling, a matter for unease, and refers to her anxiety over whether he would arrive safely. Where his poem used no pivot at all, hers raises a poetic place name, builds a scene from it, and turns the exchange back toward the road on which she had watched him go. Read against the narrative's remark that she found herself looking back in spite of herself, it is clear that the road of waves is something she had actually watched.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other