Karagoromo nareni shi tsuma o uchikaeshi waga shitagai ni nasu yoshi mo gana

English Translation

This Chinese robe, whose
hem I have worn soft with years —
if only I could
turn it, and make of that hem
the under panel of my own.

Meaning

This Chinese robe, whose hem I have worn soft with the years: if only I could turn it, and make of that hem the under panel of my own.

Commentary

92 Offering Robes to the Goddess

In the fifth month, as she was setting out on a pilgrimage, one of her women said that for a goddess it was best to sew robes and offer them. So the author cut three little garments for paper figures out of close-woven silk, and wrote a poem on the inner panel of each.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The silk named is a fine, closely woven kind. The figures are the small paper effigies offered to a god in a person's stead, and she sewed garments to clothe them. The text does not say which shrine she was going to.
It is the fifth month of the second year of Tenen, and the place is the shrine to which she was going.
It is written on the inner panel of the second of the three little garments she sewed of close-woven silk for the paper figures.
The first is "Shirotae no koromo wa kami ni yuzuritemu hedatenu naka ni kaeshi nasu beku," and the third "Natsugoromo tatsu ya to zo miru chihayaburu kami o hitoe ni tanomu mi nareba."

The opening names a robe cut in the Chinese fashion, a word used for court dress generally. In the second line the verb means that a garment grows soft with wearing, and the word for hem also means a husband; on that the poem turns, so that a hem worn soft with use carries the sense of a husband of many years. The third means turned over, that is, inside out, taking up the verb of the previous poem. The word in the fourth means the inner panel of a robe, the part that lies underneath when the garment is lapped over, and it sounds as well the verb for following or submitting: to make her husband her under panel is to have him come round to her side. The close means: if only there were a way, its particle expressing the wish. The business of turning a robe and restitching it is converted into a wish that the positions of husband and wife might be exchanged, and of the three poems this states the substance of the prayer most concretely.

Author

The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other