Ayamegusa oinishi kazu o kazoetsutsu hiku ya satsuki no sechi ni mataruru

English Translation

Counting up the years
the sweet flag has grown, I draw —
and how I long for,
how keenly I await the
banquet of the fifth month now.

Meaning

Counting up the years the sweet flag has grown, and drawing as one draws its roots, how keenly I await the banquet of the fifth month.

Commentary

21 The Kamo Festival and the Fifth-Month Banquet

About that time she went out to see the festival of the fourth month, and that other party had come out too. Judging that it must be so, she drew up to meet them. The waiting being tedious, she took some orange fruit that was at hand, hung hollyhock on it, and sent over an opening verse. After a good while the closing verse came back. Some said that after so many years as a person she had every reason to dislike, she would say only that it was impertinent. When she came home and told Kaneie how it had gone, he said: did you not tell her you felt you could eat her up? — and was much amused. That year the Emperor was to attend the fifth-month banquet, and there was a great commotion about it. When Kaneie said that he would like to see it somehow but had no place to view it from, and that if she wished to see it — she caught him up and proposed a game of backgammon; very well, he said, the stake to be a place at the viewing, and they played. Delighted, she went about her preparations, and in the quiet of the evening she drew the inkstone to her, wrote a poem as though idly practicing, and pushed it over to him. He laughed and gave her a verse in return; and since he meant her to see it after all, he had one of the two rooms adjoining the Prince's viewing stand partitioned off, splendidly furnished, and let her see.
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. The one called that other party is named in the text only by a word for a place; no name is given. The Prince's viewing stand is a stand set up for watching the festival.
It is the evening before the fifth-month banquet in the third year of Kōhō, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Having won at backgammon and secured his promise of a place at the viewing, she went happily about her preparations, and in the quiet of the evening drew the inkstone to her, wrote this as though idly practicing, and pushed it over to Kaneie.
He laughed and answered with "Kakurenu ni ouru kazu o ba tare ka shiru ayame shirazu mo mataru naru kana," and since he meant her to see it after all, he had one of the two rooms adjoining the Prince's viewing stand partitioned off and splendidly furnished, and let her see.

The plant of the opening is the sweet flag hung up at the fifth-month banquet, and it sets the season at the very door of the poem. The second line counts the years of its growth, a phrase that draws on the game of matching root-lengths and also calls up the years she and Kaneie have accumulated. The third means counting as one goes, which suits as well the counting of points at backgammon. The verb in the fourth line means to pull up the roots of the flag and also to throw the dice, and the poem turns on it: the situation, a woman who has just won a wager, becomes the pivot itself. In the close, the word for the banquet is also the word for keenly, so that waiting for the banquet of the fifth month and waiting keenly are one. Two pivots tie the banquet to the game in a light piece of amusement, and the note that it was written as idle practice and pushed across to him conveys the ease of it exactly.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other