Kanashiku mo omoi tayuru ka isonokami sawaranu mono to narahishi mono o

English Translation

Sadly, then, is this
the end of all your thinking?
At Isonokami —
in the old days I was used
to rain being no hindrance.

Meaning

Sadly, then — is this the end of your thinking of me? In the old days I was used to rain being no hindrance at all.

Commentary

58 A Day of Cold Rain in the Twelfth Month

About the sixteenth of the twelfth month Kaneie sent word that he would like to come at once. But the sky clouded over suddenly and a heavy rain set in; and since, unlike in the old days, he could not come, the author sent a messenger with a poem.
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. In the first book too there is a scene in which a gentlewoman recalls the days when he let no rain or wind stand in his way; rain serves throughout as the measure of his visits.
It is about the sixteenth of the twelfth month of the second year of Tenroku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
Kaneie had sent word that he would like to come at once, when the sky clouded over suddenly and a heavy rain set in; and since, unlike in the old days, he could not come, she sent a messenger with this poem.
After it Kaneie did come, through the rain. But when the rain stopped in the night he went home, saying he would come again at nightfall; and since the direction was closed, he did not come after all.

The opening means sadly, and starts the poem in lament. The second asks whether the feeling is at an end, taking a message that he cannot come on account of rain as a break in the heart itself. The third is a place name in Yamato conventionally used to introduce words for what is old or long past, and here it summons the recollection that follows. The fourth means something that does not get in the way, referring to the days when neither rain nor wind kept him from coming. The final particle is adversative and trails off: that was what she had grown used to — and what should follow is not said. Against the present excuse that rain prevents him, she sets the fact that it once did not; the practice of measuring his visits by the weather, recurrent in this diary since the first book, is at work here again. The structure is simple, one place name dividing then from now, and the reproach is made without a single word of reproach in it.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other