Obotsukana ware ni mo aranu kusamakura mada koso shirane kakaru tabine wa

English Translation

I am uncertain.
This pillow of grass, on which
I was not myself —
such a night's lodging as this
I have not known before now.

Meaning

I am uncertain. This pillow of grass, on which I was not myself — such a night's lodging as this I have not known before.

Commentary

64 Taking in an Adopted Daughter: An Old Exchange between Kaneie and the Daughter of Minamoto no Kanetada

Since one child, Michitsuna, seemed too slender a support, the author consulted an acquaintance about taking in a daughter, and was told that Kaneie had a charming girl of twelve or thirteen by the daughter of Minamoto no Kanetada. It was settled that the girl should be taken in as an adopted daughter. Poems that Kaneie and that woman had once exchanged were handed down with the story: Kaneie composed first, the woman answered, and after some while she made a further poem in reply to one of his.
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 girl's mother is taken to be a daughter of Minamoto no Kanetada, though the text gives no name. The adopted daughter was twelve or thirteen.
It is one of the old exchange handed down at the time the adopted daughter was taken in, in the third year of Tenroku; the text does not say where.
It answers Kaneie's poem saying that a night's lodging beyond the barrier did not seem a thing of one night only.
Some while later, in reply to another poem of his, she composed "Okisouru tsuyu ni yonayona nurekoshi wa omoi no naka ni kawaku sode ka wa."

She takes back his pillow of grass and his night's lodging. The opening means unsure, not to be made out, putting first a mind that cannot quite believe what it is told. The second means as though beside oneself, out of one's senses, and modifies the pillow of the third line. Where he had made the night's lodging proof of the depth of his feeling, she restates that same lodging as a state of not being oneself, using his words while reversing their value. The fourth is bound by an emphatic particle: she does not yet know. The close ends on a noun, leaving such a lodging as this standing without comment. She neither denies nor accepts what he says, but answers that she has no experience by which to judge — a well-kept reserve for a poem written after a first meeting. It is the same pattern of reply as the author's own in the courtship scenes of the first book, where she gathered up Kaneie's words one by one and returned them.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other