Katagoi ya kurushikaruramu yamagatsu no augo nashi to wa mienu mono kara

English Translation

A load on one side
only, a love on one side —
hard to bear, no doubt;
and yet this woodsman does not
seem to lack a carrying pole.

Meaning

A load borne on one side only, a love on one side only: hard to bear, no doubt — and yet this woodsman does not seem to be without a carrying pole.

Commentary

26 Exchanges with the Lady of the Jōganden

Toward the end of the twelfth month the lady of the Jōganden withdrew to the house on the west. On the last day of the month there was a sudden earthquake, and from midday on it went on rumbling and rattling while she sat watching it alone; and so the year turned to the first of Anna. About midday on New Year's Day, since no men were about among the guest's household, all was quiet. Hearing that the lady was still next door, they laughed together over what one waits for on such a day; and while they were at it, someone idly fetched a little figure of a man made of millet, pressed it against the leg-end of the pheasant from before, wrote on it, and sent it in to the lady. She dried some seaweed, tore it into short pieces, tied them together, shifted the load to the end of the pole, carved a calf onto the leg that had been thin, and sent it back larger than it had come. When the day was well up the festival food was served; the same was done in this house, and the fifteenth also passed in the usual way. The third month came. A letter that seemed meant for the guest's household was misdelivered here. It read that he could not leave things as they were and thought of calling before long, but that there might be someone who would rather it were not he. Since the lady had long been used to seeing such things, the author supposed this was how it went; even so she did not let it pass, but wrote a few words very small, and sent it back saying that it should be taken to that lady. When the lady had read it a reply came at once. Since this lady attended the Crown Prince almost as a mother, she was bound to go to the palace. She said again and again that she could not stay as she was, and so the author called on her in the evening. Just then voices were heard on the other side; the lady kept saying so, so, but the author would not attend to it, and the lady seemed to be growing drowsy as one does in the early evening. Then someone came walking up and made an announcement, and the author went home without any ease of mind. The next evening the lady went to the palace. In the fifth month, when she withdrew to put off mourning for the Emperor, it had been arranged that she should come here as before; but saying she had seen something inauspicious in a dream, she withdrew to the other house. Since portents kept coming in dreams, and she wished there were some way of averting them, in the seventh month, on a night of very bright moon, she sent a poem. Four poems on dreams follow, and then an exchange on a river.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The lady of the Jōganden was a daughter of Fujiwara no Morosuke and a consort of the late Emperor Murakami, and Kaneie's sister; the text gives no name, and she is taken to be Fujiwara no Tōshi. At the end of the previous year she had withdrawn to the house immediately west of the author's, and the exchanges that follow depend upon that nearness. The writer of the misdelivered letter is Kaneie, third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, who would rise to be regent and chancellor.
It is the first month of the first year of Anna, and the places are the author's dwelling and the lady's residence next door on the west.
Someone had idly made a little man out of millet; the author had it brought, pressed it against the leg-end of the pheasant from before, wrote this on it, and sent it in to the lady next door.
The lady dried seaweed, tore it short, tied it together, shifted the load to the end of the pole, carved a calf onto the thin leg, and returned the figure larger than it had come, with "Yamagatsu no ato machiidete kurabureba koi masarikeru kata mo arikeri."

The word at the opening means a load hung on one end of a carrying pole and also a love that is returned by no one, and the poem turns on it: the actual figure, weighted on one side only, becomes the pivot itself. The second line conjectures that it must be hard, saying at once that the load is heavy and that the love is painful. The word in the third line means a lowly dweller in the hills, and describes the figure that was made. The pole in the fourth line is the one across the shoulders, and it also sounds the word for an occasion of meeting; the picture of a figure carrying on one side though it does not lack a pole falls exactly over the complaint of a love unreturned though the chance of meeting is not lacking. The close is adversative and trails off, leaving what should follow unsaid. Out of a trifling toy made of millet the poem builds a double pivot and sends it next door — a piece of New Year's amusement, made for the season.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other