Yo no naka o hakanaki mono to misasagi no umoruru yama ni nagekuramu ya zo

English Translation

Seeing the world as
a fleeting thing — at that hill
where the tomb lies buried,
are you grieving even now,
I wonder, over there?

Meaning

Seeing the world for the fleeting thing it is — at that hill where the tomb lies buried, are you grieving there even now?

Commentary

25 The Death of Emperor Murakami and Kaneie's Promotion

The fifth month came. Past the tenth there was the matter of the Emperor's illness, and before the outcry had well begun he died, some time after the twentieth. The Crown Prince acceded at once. The man who had been Assistant of the Crown Prince's household was now spoken of as Head Chamberlain, and there was such a noise about it that the grief was left to the world at large while in this house one heard of nothing but congratulation. Answering all that gave her some sense of being like other people, though her private mind was as it had always been, and everything about her was noisy in a way quite opposite to her feeling. Hearing talk of the tomb and the rest, she thought with sorrow of what those who had enjoyed the Emperor's favor must be feeling. When some days had passed she wrote to the lady of the Jōganden to ask how she did, and added a poem. The answer was very sorrowful. The forty-nine days ended and the seventh month came. A young Guards officer who had served the Emperor, still young and with no sign of any trouble on his mind, abandoned parents and wife alike, climbed up into the mountains and became a monk. While people were exclaiming at it and calling it pitiful, word came that his wife too had become a nun. Since the author had exchanged letters with her before, she wrote to condole, finding it very sad and astonishing; and an answer came back at once. That too was very sad.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The Emperor is Murakami, who died in the fifth month of the fourth year of Kōhō. The man who had been Assistant of the Crown Prince's household is Kaneie, third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke; the accession made him Head Chamberlain, and he would rise to be regent and chancellor. The lady of the Jōganden was Morosuke's daughter and a consort of the late Emperor, and Kaneie's sister; the text gives no name, and she is taken to be Fujiwara no Tōshi. Neither the Guards officer who became a monk nor his wife who became a nun is named. A marginal note in the base text identifies the acceding Crown Prince as Enyū, but the emperor who acceded in the fourth year of Kōhō was Reizei.
It is the fifth month of the fourth year of Kōhō, after the death of Emperor Murakami, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Hearing talk of the late Emperor's tomb, she wondered how it must be for those who had stood high in his favor, and, much moved, she sent this.
The answer was very sorrowful: "Okureji to uki misasagi ni omoiiru kokoro wa shide no yama ni ya aruramu."

The first two lines mean: seeing the world as a fleeting thing — with the verb of seeing left out. That missing verb is hidden in the first syllable of the word for an imperial tomb in the third line, so that the phrase about seeing the world as fleeting and the noun for the tomb are held in one word. That is the hinge of the poem: a mind turning on impermanence flows straight into the burial place of an emperor. The fourth line names the hill in which the tomb lies buried, so that the death is not spoken of directly but shown by the image of burial in a hill. The close joins a conjecture to a question: are you grieving there even now? The poem went to a woman who had stood high in the late Emperor's favor; read beside the narrative's remark that in the author's own house nothing was heard but rejoicing over a promotion, it throws up the contrast by which one death is celebration on one side and desolation on the other. It is a poem held out, by someone who has noticed that gap, to the side that mourns.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other