Tsuyu shigeki michi to ka itodo shide no yama katsugatsu nururu sode ika ni semu

English Translation

They say it is a
road thick with dew — that mountain
the dead must cross; and
already my sleeves are wet.
What am I to do with them?

Meaning

They say it is a road thick with dew, that mountain the dead must cross; and already my sleeves are wet. What am I to do with them?

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 from the end of the intercalary fifth month into the sixth month of the second year of Anna, and the place is the author's dwelling.
It closes the testament, set down after the remark that this was, of all times, no occasion on which she could say these things face to face.
When she had written it she added at the edge that he was to be told she had asked, over and over, that not a speck be left undone in the offices for her afterward; then she sealed it, wrote on the outside that it was to be shown when the days of abstinence were over, and shuffled across to the Chinese chest beside her and put it in.

The first two lines report at second hand that it is a road thick with dew. A road wet with dew is the common language of travel, but here it is the road to the mountain named next. The mountain of the third line is the one the dead are said to cross, and the poem lays the heavy dew upon that road. The fourth line carries the sense of at any rate and also of already, saying that her sleeves are wet before she has so much as set foot on it. The close asks what she is to do with them, breaking off in perplexity with nothing after it. The dew of the mountain of the dead and the tears falling here and now become a single wetness, so that a poem about a road still to be travelled returns upon the woman writing at this moment. Placed at the end of the testament, it leaves, after all the requests are made, only a short word about the loneliness of what lies ahead.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other