Mi hitotsu no kaku naru taki o tazunureba sara ni kaeranu mizu mo sumikeri

English Translation

Seeking out the fall
that my one self has come to —
Narutaki — I find
that water which never returns
runs clear here, and dwells here too.

Meaning

Seeking out the fall my one self has come to, I find that the water which never returns runs clear here, and dwells here too.

Commentary

54 The Retreat at Narutaki

On the fourth of the sixth month, setting out before Kaneie's period of abstinence was over, she went to the temple at Narutaki in the western hills and shut herself up there. Kaneie came to fetch her and she would not go; letters passed, and life at the mountain temple went on. Her sister visited, Kaneie's messenger came, she hardened a sorrowful resolve, and another letter came from him. Letters of inquiry arrived one after another, and though she answered them the next day, the time went by while she turned over such thoughts as that she did not mean to stay shut up forever. She put that state of mind into a poem and sent it to one who had written. An answer came. Then, to the gentlewomen on night duty, someone who had once served in that office sent a poem, saying that they too must be attending their mistress with heavy hearts, and that there is a poem about how high and low alike have their risings and fallings. Hearing of it from the woman, the author told her to answer quickly, and she replied that seeing their mistress holding back her tears made them all wretched. Later a relative came to call, and the next day sent the things needed for a long stay away from home, adding that it must have been hard to come all that way to a mountain temple, with two poems. The author wrote back with great care and returned two poems of her own. Afterward letters passed with Tōshi, and a poem came also from an ascetic of the temple who had crossed the Ōmine range from Mitake to Kumano. In time Michitaka called, her father Tomoyasu came for her, and at last she came down from the mountain when Kaneie came to fetch her.
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. Narutaki is a place in the western hills of the capital, where the temple stood. The one who sent the letter of inquiry, the former attendant on night duty, the gentlewoman, the relative and the ascetic are none of them named in the text.
It is the sixth month of the second year of Tenroku, and the place is the mountain temple at Narutaki.
It is the second of the two poems returned to the relative; the first is "Mono omoi no fukasa kurabe ni kite mireba natsu no shigeri mo mono naranaku ni."
After this exchange letters pass with Tōshi, and an ascetic of the temple who had crossed the Ōmine range from Mitake to Kumano sends "Toyama dani kakarikeru o to shirakumo no fukaki kokoro wa shiru mo shiranu mo."

She receives unchanged the other's play on the place name and the verb for becoming. The opening means: this one self of mine, implying that the condition is hers alone. The word in the second line is the verb for coming to be and at the same time the name Narutaki, so that she keeps to the device the other had used. The third means: having come and sought it out. The fourth names water that never returns, laying over the falling water, which is gone once it has passed, a life that cannot be brought back. The verb at the close means both that water runs clear and that one dwells in a place, and on it the poem turns: to say that the water which never returns runs clear and dwells here is to lay her own settling in this place, knowing there is no going back, exactly over the water of the fall. To one who lamented that anyone should have told her of such a place, she answers that having come she means to stay; and her refusal of the invitation to come down is placed entirely within the image of water.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other