Koshi mo sezu kosazu mo arazu namiyose no hama wa kaketsutsu toshi o koso fure

English Translation

Not crossing, and not
not crossing either — the shore
where the waves come in
has gone on being broken over,
year after year after year.

Meaning

Not crossing, and not not crossing either: the shore where the waves come in has gone on being broken over, year after year.

Commentary

103 The Exchange on the White Waves Offshore

This time too no answer came. While he was wondering what it could mean, he heard that there were said to be a great many men courting her. That must be it, he thought, and sent a poem; and this time an answer came. When the year had turned he sent another, and that too was answered.
The author was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu. The Assistant Master is her son Fujiwara no Michitsuna. The woman is not named in the text. The old poem in which waves cross the pine-clad hill of Sue serves as the figure for what could never happen — a change of heart — and this whole exchange is built upon that turn of phrase.
It is the twelfth month of the second year of Tenen, and the place is the woman's house.
It answers the Assistant Master's poem, beginning with the supposition that she is a pine waiting for someone else.
When the year had turned he sent "Samo koso wa nami no kokoro wa tsurakarame toshi sae koyuru matsu mo arikeri."

She takes back his crossing and his waves. The first two lines set the same verb in the affirmative and the negative together — not crossing, and not not crossing — to show a state that settles neither way. To a man pressing her not to cross, she gives neither answer. The third names the incoming of the waves and modifies the shore of the fourth: where he had produced the white waves offshore, she places herself on the side of the shore they break upon. The verb in the closing lines means that waves break over something, and it sounds as well the setting of one's heart on a thing. To say that the waves have gone on breaking over it for years is also to say that the rumor of many suitors is itself neither crossed nor uncrossed. The emphatic particle deepens the length of those years. Against a man who has taken the position of accuser, she answers in a way that dissolves the choice between crossing and not crossing altogether.

Source

Kagero Nikki

Other