Hototogisu mata tou beku mo katarawade kaeru yamaji no kogurakarikemu

English Translation

The cuckoo went off
without a word of coming
again; and the road
home through the hills must have been
dark under all those trees.

Meaning

The cuckoo went off without a word of coming again; and the road home through the hills must have been dark under all those trees.

Commentary

89 His Visit and the Exchange the Next Morning

On the night of the twenty-second of the fourth month, the appointed day, the Master of the Right Stables came and begged the author that he might at least be let inside the blinds and speak with the young lady; but that too was refused, and he went home without so much as a torch. The next morning the author sent him a poem, and he answered.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The Master of the Right Stables was a younger brother of Kaneie; the text gives only his office, and a marginal note in the base text identifies him as Fujiwara no Tōdo. The blinds hung between a room and the outside, and whether a man was admitted within them marked the degree of intimacy allowed him.
It is the morning of the twenty-third of the fourth month of the second year of Tenen, and the places are the author's dwelling and the Master's residence.
On the night of the twenty-second, the appointed day, he had come and begged that he might at least be let inside the blinds and speak with the young lady; but that was refused, and he went home without even a torch. This was sent the next morning.
He answered with "Tou koe wa itsu to nakeredo hototogisu akete kuyashiki mono o koso omoe."

The opening takes the bird he had used throughout this exchange and makes it stand for the man himself. The second means: nor even that he would come again, referring to the promise of a next visit. The third means without saying so — he went off without a word. The fourth names the mountain road home, taking up the narrative's remark that he left without so much as a torch. The close conjectures that it must have been dark beneath the trees, imagining a night road overhung with growth. Since the cuckoo is a bird that calls at night, the figure suits a man going home late. Having refused his request, she yet takes thought for the darkness of his road; she offers no word of apology for the refusal and nothing but that concern. There is ingenuity, too, in receiving his cuckoo and changing its part from a bird awaited to a bird departing.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other