Yūdasuki musubōretsutsu nageku koto taenaba kami no shirushi to omowamu

English Translation

The mulberry cord
knots and will not come undone,
and so my heart grieves;
and should that grieving cease, I
shall take it as the god's sign.

Meaning

The mulberry cord knots and will not come undone, and so my heart goes on grieving; should the grieving cease, I shall take it as the god's own sign.

Commentary

23 Poems Offered at Inari and Kamo

The ninth month came, and thinking that the world would be at its most beautiful, that she should like to go on a pilgrimage somewhere and lay before the god the frailty of her own situation, she set out very quietly to a certain place. On a single sheaf of offerings she wrote these poems: one for the lower shrine, one for the middle, one for the last. Then, at the end of the same month, she went in the same manner to another place, this time with two sheaves: two poems for the lower shrine and two for the upper. Such were the things she muttered where no god could hear them.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The place she visited in secret is understood to be Inari at Fushimi, since one of the poems names Mount Inari. The other place, visited at the end of the same month, is understood to be the Kamo shrines, since the poems speak of the purification stream and the sacred grove. The text names neither shrine, calling them only the lower, the middle and the last, and the lower and the upper.
It is the end of the ninth month of the third year of Kōhō, and the place is the upper shrine of the other sanctuary visited in the same quiet way.
It is the second of the two poems written for the upper shrine, and it closes the set of seven offered at the two sanctuaries.
The narrative closes the section by saying that these were things she muttered where no god could hear them. Autumn then ends, the winter is passed as if sleeping alone, and the account moves on to "Kazu shirazu omou kokoro ni kurabureba tō kasanuru mo mono to ya wa miru."

The opening names the mulberry-bark cord worn over the shoulders in worship. The second line means knotted and not to be undone, and it holds both the knotting of the cord and the tangling of a heart that will not clear; the poem turns on it. The third line names what comes of such a heart. The verb in the fourth line means both that a cord snaps and that grieving stops. For a cord used in worship to break would ordinarily be an ill thing, but here it is turned into the shape of a petition: if only the grieving would cease, she will take that for the god's sign. The close states her intention plainly. As the conclusion of seven poems it does not demand that the prayer be granted; it asks only that, should the grief end, she may read it as a sign — a modest form, well suited to words written on an offering and laid before a shrine.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other