Orokanaru kokoroyamien masukagami furukisugatani tachiwaoyobade

English Translation

Will a foolish heart
show itself here in this glass,
this Masukagami,
that cannot stand and reach as high
as those old shapes of long ago

Meaning

Will my poor understanding show through? This clear mirror of mine cannot stand beside the noble shape of the old mirrors.

Commentary

Preface

On the fifteenth of the second month, the day of the Nirvana rite, the narrator visits Seiryoji temple in Saga to worship the Shaka Buddha. An old nun leans on a dove-headed staff and comes to pray beside her. Complaining of a sore back, she sends her young attendant away to the lodging, repeats the Buddha's name again and again, and, gazing at the sun as it slips toward the ridge, murmurs that it feels like her own life. Something graceful in her manner suggests a woman of feeling, and the narrator draws near and speaks to her. Asked her age, she says she has passed a hundred years by a wide margin, and remarks that through all the upheavals of the age this temple alone has come to no harm; her way of speaking is old-fashioned and refined. The narrator asks to hear stories of the past, invoking the old man of the Bodhi service at Unrin-in and the tale of the white-haired one. The nun demurs, saying her eyes and ears have grown dim, but when the narrator counts over the books she has read—Mizukagami, Okagami, Yotsugi, Imakagami, Iyayotsugi—and asks to hear what came after them, the nun agrees to tell what she can, brokenly, and asks that her errors be corrected.
The old nun's name and family are never given; she says only that she has passed a hundred. The narrator too remains unnamed. The old man of the Bodhi service at Unrin-in refers to Oyake no Yotsugi of the Okagami; the tale of the white-haired one refers to the Imakagami; and Iyayotsugi is the book attributed to Lord Takanobu, Fujiwara no Takanobu.
The time is dusk on the fifteenth of the second month; the place is a cell at Seiryoji in Saga.
The narrator has counted over the earlier books—Mizukagami, Okagami, Yotsugi, Imakagami, Iyayotsugi—and pressed the nun to tell what came after them. The nun answers with a word of refusal, asking not to be measured against those old works, and brings out this poem in a trembling voice.
The narrator finds the manner of it not displeasing and altogether old-fashioned, replies that the nun must mean her own words to be written down and set beside the shape of the past, and answers with a poem. From here the nun's account of the past becomes the body of the work.

The opening word is a term of self-deprecation attached to the heart. In the second line the interrogative particle answers the auxiliary of conjecture at the close, so that the speaker wonders whether her poor understanding will show. The third line names the Masukagami, which is at once the title of a book and a mirror that reflects without a blur; the reflecting glass and the written record are laid over one another. In the lower lines the old shapes are the earlier mirror-histories, and shape, standing and reaching all belong to the imagery of the mirror. The final negative connective breaks off rather than concludes, leaving the sense of never reaching that height. The nun's modesty thus becomes the explanation of the title, and the narrator's reply takes the word Masukagami back up again in "Imamomata mukashiokakeba masukagami furinuruyoyono atonikasanen".

Source

Masukagami

Other