Kawa to mite yukanu kokoro o nagamureba itodo yuyushiku ii ya hatsu beki

English Translation

Taking it for a
river, and gazing at a
heart that will not flow —
must you speak the thing out to
its end, and so ill-omenedly?

Meaning

Taking what lies between us for a river, and gazing at a heart that will not flow across it — must you speak the thing out to its end, and so ill-omenedly?

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 a night of very bright moon in the seventh month of the first year of Anna, and the place is the lady's residence.
The author had written that in the waking world even words run out; the lady sent this, asking what she meant by it and calling it ill-omened.
The author answered with "Wataraneba ochikatabito ni nareru mi o kokoro bakari wa fuchise ya wa waku," and the narrative closes the section by saying that so they went on the whole night through.

The opening takes what lies between them for a river, making a river of the distance between two houses separated by a single fence and yet not crossed. Answering the other's road that runs through dreams, this sets a barrier of water on the side of waking. The second line names a heart that will not go across, and also a heart that will not clear, so that stagnant water and an unlifting mind coincide. The third means to gaze while sunk in thought, describing someone staring at that still surface. The fourth reproves directly the phrase about words running out. The close asks whether the thing must be spoken out to its end, the particle giving the question the force of a rebuke. To shun the word for ending is the same scruple that led the Prince, in the exchange on thread, to break off of his own accord after using it — the fear of ill-omened words that runs through this diary is at work here too.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other