Ware zo geni tokete nurame ya hototogisu mono omoi masaru koe to naruramu

English Translation

Truly, could I have
lain down with my heart at ease?
The cuckoo's calling,
I think, would only turn out
a voice that deepens brooding.

Meaning

Truly, could I have lain down with my heart at ease? The cuckoo's calling, I think, would only turn out a voice that deepens brooding.

Commentary

70 The Prayer at Ishiyama; Alone, Entrusting It to the Cuckoo

After shutting herself up at Ishiyama to pray for Michitsuna's future and the rest, the fifth month came, and still she had not heard the cuckoo that everyone else said they had heard. Ashamed before others, she composed a poem alone.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. Ishiyama is the temple of that name in Ōmi, where many went into retreat seeking the mercy of Kannon. The cuckoo sings at the beginning of summer, and to hear its first call was one of the season's pleasures; to miss it was taken as a sign of being somehow left out.
It is the fifth month of the third year of Tenroku, and the place is the author's dwelling.
After her retreat at Ishiyama, where she prayed for Michitsuna's future, the fifth month came and she still had not heard the cuckoo that everyone said they had heard. Ashamed before others, she composed this alone.
It was sent to no one and stayed within her. Afterward the cicadas are heard, and the account moves to the exchange on the colored leaves.

The opening means: I, truly, with an emphatic particle strengthening what follows. It starts from the fact that everyone else claims to have heard the cuckoo and she alone has not. In the second line the verb means for the heart to relax, the next means to lie down, and the particle makes the question rhetorical: could she have slept at ease? — she could not; so that the reason she missed the first call is that she is not a woman who sleeps easily at all. The third names the cuckoo, whose first call was one of the pleasures of the season. The close conjectures that its voice would only prove one that deepens brooding. Rather than lamenting that she missed it, she says that hearing it would have done nothing but increase her cares — a quiet admission that she is not among those who take pleasure in the season. Its position, immediately after the retreat at Ishiyama where she prayed for her son's future, accounts for the poem well.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other