Hana ni saki mi ni narikawaru yo o sutete ukiha no tsuyu to ware zo kenu beki

English Translation

Leaving behind this
world that blossoms and then turns
to fruit, I shall be
a drop of dew on a floating
leaf, and so vanish away.

Meaning

Leaving behind this world that blossoms and then turns to fruit, I shall be a drop of dew on a floating leaf, and vanish.

Commentary

36 Illness and the Written Testament

While this was going on, the intercalary fifth month came. From the last day of the month, for whatever reason, she was in great pain, with nothing she could point to, and thought only that it might go as it would. She kept praying that no one should see her clinging to life, but those who saw and heard would not be silent, and there were rites with burnt mustard seed and the rest; still nothing came of it and the days went by. Kaneie, saying he was in a period of purification, did not come as he used to. He was building a new place, and on his way past he would stand without dismounting, say a word or two, and ask how she did. One evening, when she felt her strength failing and her chest tight with sorrow, he sent in a single lotus fruit by a servant on his way back from the other house: it was growing dark, the man said, so he would not come in; this was from over there, and would she look at it. To this she only had the answer given, that he should be told she was alive and not alive, and lay thinking; and it grieved her that the beautiful place he had promised to show her one day would come to nothing, since neither her own span nor another's heart could be known. Then a poem came to her. The days passed and she was no better, and she was afraid. Since she was a woman who thought only that she would be better dead, it was not that she grudged her life by so much as a dewdrop; only when she thought what was to become of her one child could she not hold back her tears. Since her condition must be visibly other than usual, they called in monks of standing and tried what could be done, but nothing at all changed. She might well die like this, she thought; when it comes suddenly one cannot say what one wishes to say; to end so would be a bitter thing; while there is still time one ought to speak, even where minds differ. So, leaning against an armrest, she wrote a testament, in which she wrote at length about Michitsuna, and set two poems into it. When it was done she added a line at the edge, sealed it, wrote on the outside that it was to be shown when the days of abstinence were over, and, shuffling across to the Chinese chest beside her, put it in. Those who saw would think it strange, she says; but if the illness lasted, it would be a bitter thing not even to have done this much.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Kaneie was the third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke and would rise to be regent and chancellor. The little person entrusted in the testament is her son, Fujiwara no Michitsuna. The rite with burnt mustard seed is an esoteric observance in which mustard seed is cast into the fire.
It is the end of the intercalary fifth month of the second year of Anna, and the place is the author's dwelling.
On his way back from the other house Kaneie sent in a single lotus fruit by a servant. She had only the answer given that he should be told she was alive and not alive, and lay thinking; and this poem came to her then.
The poem was sent to no one and stayed within her. The days passed with no change, and in her fear the account moves on to the writing of the testament against the armrest.

The first two lines mean blossoming and then turning to fruit, and set the lotus fruit that had been sent straight at the door of the poem. The lotus was held to bear flower and fruit at once, so that it makes change itself visible. The word for fruit also carries the word for a person's body, so that the turning of blossom into fruit is laid over the turning of a human life. The third line means leaving that changing world behind. The floating leaf of the fourth is the lotus pad on the water, and the dew that rests on it will roll off at the first breath of wind — the very image of what is most frail. The close is bound by an emphatic particle: she will vanish. The whole frame is the contrast between what comes to fruit and what merely lies as dew on a leaf. The narrative's lament that the beautiful place she was promised will now never be seen is transposed exactly into that arrangement of blossom, fruit and dew.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other