Okisouru tsuyu ni yonayona nurekoshi wa omoi no naka ni kawaku sode ka wa

English Translation

These sleeves, that night by
night have been wet with the dew
that settles and settles —
are they sleeves that would dry, even
in the midst of such a fire?

Meaning

These sleeves, wet night after night with dew that settles and settles again — are they sleeves that would dry even in the midst of such a fire?

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.
Some while after the first exchange, it was composed in answer to another poem of Kaneie's.
With these three poems the quotation of the old exchange ends, and the account moves on to the plans for the girl's coming-of-age and the fire in a house nearby.

The opening names dew that keeps settling and adding to itself, the standing figure for tears. The second means night after night, saying that the sleeves have been wet every night. The third carries into the question below. In the fourth, the word for feeling contains the word for fire, so that the phrase means in the midst of that fire; on it the poem turns. Sleeves wet with dew and the fire of longing are set face to face, and the argument is made that even in fire they will not dry. The close is rhetorical: would they dry? — they would not. The commonplace that fire dries what is wet is raised only so that it may be denied, and by the denial the quantity of the tears is stated. This pairing of fire and water follows the same idea as "Omoi araba hinamashi mono o ikadekawa kaesu koromo no tare mo nururamu" in the first book, and belongs to a pattern that recurs throughout the diary.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other