Omoi seku mune no himura wa tsurenakute namida o wakasu mono ni zarikeru

English Translation

The banked fire in my
breast, that dams my thoughts in, wears
an indifferent face —
and all the while it is what
brings my tears to the boil.

Meaning

The banked fire in my breast, which dams my thoughts in, wears an indifferent face; and all the while it is what brings my tears to the boil.

Commentary

48 Tears on a Rainy Night in the Twelfth Month

The first of the twelfth month came. About the seventh he looked in at midday. By now she felt too exposed before him and drew the curtain-stand close; seeing her out of humor, he said that the day was gone and that he had been summoned from the palace, and went out without sitting down. After that there was no word at all, and it was the seventeenth or eighteenth. From about midday there was heavy driving rain, and hail fell all through the idle hours. Whatever hope she might have had was gone as well. Thinking of old times, she reflected that it had not been of his choosing but of his nature, and that she had been trained to believe neither wind nor rain would keep him; today, recalling it, she saw that even then his heart had never been at ease, and that the presumption had been hers; and she brooded the day away. The rain kept on, and it grew dark enough for lamps. There was a man who had lately been coming to the south side of the house; hearing footsteps she supposed it was he. What a charming time to come, she said, setting aside the heart that seethed within her; and a woman who had known her for years faced her and said: ah, in the old days he never let wind or rain keep him, and worse than this. At that the tears ran down hot upon her, and a poem came. She said it over and over, and did not even go to where she slept, but passed the night so. So that month too, some thirty days of it, went by, and the year turned.
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 woman who had known her for years is a gentlewoman long in her service; the text gives no name.
It is a night about the seventeenth or eighteenth of the twelfth month of the first year of Tenroku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
On an evening of heavy rain she heard the footsteps of the man who came to the south side, and setting aside the seething of her own heart remarked how charming it was that he should come; whereupon a gentlewoman long acquainted with the household said, facing her, that in the old days the other one had let no rain or wind stand in his way. The tears that came at this were hot, and so the poem came to her.
Saying it over and over, she never went in to sleep, and the night passed. With that month, some thirty days later, the year turned.

In the opening, the word for thinking contains the syllable that also means fire, by an old and settled usage, so that to dam a thought is at the same time to bank a fire; the whole poem rests on it. The second line names the mass of fire in the breast, the passion held in and not let out. The third means wearing an unconcerned face, showing nothing outwardly. The fourth means that it brings tears to the boil: starting from the plain fact that the tears fell hot, the poem locates the source of that heat in the fire within. The close ends on the realization that this is how it is. Taking a bodily sensation as its point of departure and reasoning from it to the proposition that suppressed feeling becomes a fire that boils the tears, it is unusually physiological as an expression of grief. As the narrative says, she repeated it over and over and did not even go to bed: this is not a poem made to be sent but a phrase muttered again and again. The base text is disturbed here, and the reading of the closing line is not settled.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other