Furusatowa irinuruisono kusayotada yūshiomichite mirakusukunaki

English Translation

My old home is now
like grass upon a rocky shore
the tide has come over—
only, as the evening water fills,
the times of seeing it are few

Meaning

My old home is like the grass on a shore the tide has entered: as the evening water fills, the times of seeing it grow few.

Commentary

Book Three: Fujigoromo

At that time there lived an old prince whom no one counted. He was Prince Moriada, third son of Takakura and elder brother of the cloistered sovereign at Oki. Long before, when Go-Shirakawa was choosing among his grandsons, this prince had wept, and so had never come to the throne; he lived resentful of the world, and his residence had grown deep in grass and choked with vines. In the Kempo years a woman of his household dreamed that many men in court caps came and said the regalia were to be brought in and that all should make ready, but the prince thought nothing of it and at last took the tonsure. Then came the rising, and all the family of the senior retired emperor were scattered; since no suitable sovereign remained, by the decision of the east the son of this cloistered prince, then ten years old, was suddenly set on the throne on the ninth day of the seventh month of Joukyu 3. The father was given the title of retired sovereign and called cloistered emperor. That a grandson of an emperor should come to the throne had not happened since Konin, and it was thought remarkable. He came of age in the first month of Joo 1; his personal name was Yutahito, and his mother was Kitashirakawain, daughter of the Middle Counselor Motoie. Lord Iezane returned to the regency. In the fifth month of the next year the cloistered emperor died and the whole realm went into mourning. The former emperor had been deposed at four and was not even granted a title; his mother, Higashi Ichijoin, lived in a mountain village and grieved in loneliness. She was the daughter of the late regent Go-Kyogoku Yoshitsune and skilled in the way of poetry, but her nature was reserved, quiet and grave, and even Juntoku, who loved her without limit, had found her too much so. After their far parting she lay sunk in grief, and answered with a poem when a woman who had long served her sent robes for the seasonal change; she wrote another while practising her hand. In the Kanki years Michiie again became regent, his daughter entered the palace as consort, and the world was brilliant. Consorts succeeded one another rapidly, and titles were later given as Akimon'in and Takatsukasain. In Kanki 3 Michiie passed the regency to his son Norizane and became senior lord; his sons held the shogunate in the east, the Tendai abbacy, the Miidera and Yamashina offices and the Ninnaji cloister, a flourishing without precedent. In the eleventh month of that year the retired emperor of Awa died at thirty-seven. Shomeimon'in's grief was without limit, and she wept over the utensils he had used there and the letters from Oki that had been gathered together. Kozaisho, daughter of Ietaka of the second rank, sank deeper than anyone and dyed her mourning robes black, and composed a poem. In Joei 1 the Middle Counselor Teika was charged with a collection and presented it within the year; it is called the Shinchokusen. In the same month Go-Horikawa, gravely ill, abdicated, and his two-year-old son came to the throne. The empress was tormented by spirits and died on the eighteenth day of the ninth month of Tempuku 1 at twenty-five; she is called Sohekimon'in. The Mibu no Kyo no Naishi no Suke, daughter of the Middle Counselor Teika, sank into grief past bearing, took the tonsure, and answered an enquiry with a poem. In the fifth month of Bunryaku 1 the deposed emperor of Joukyu died at seventeen, and on the sixth day of the eighth month Go-Horikawa died at about twenty-three. From the end of the third month of Katei 1 the regent Norizane fell gravely ill and died at twenty-six, so Michiie returned to the regency and governed for a third time; the purification and thanksgiving were held that winter. At Oki the retired emperor heard faintly of such things in the capital, and as his years increased and his sorrows only thickened, he found his one solace in the way of poetry. He sent topics to the capital by whatever means offered and called for poems; Ietaka of the second rank gathered the poems of others as well and sent them, and Hideyoshi, who had taken the tonsure after the rising and called himself Nyogan, answered the summons too. The retired emperor judged the poems himself, and wrote poems of his own while practising his hand. He had lived on that shore some nineteen years when he died on the twenty-second day of the second month of En'o 1, at sixty. His wish to return once to the capital had been deep, but it came to nothing. Yoshimochi of the Northern Guard carried his ashes to the capital about his neck; they were placed in the Lotus Hall at Ohara, and by Shumeimon'in's arrangement the Minase villa was transferred to it. He was at first given the name Kentokuin, but about the Ninji years this was changed and he came to be called Go-Toba In.
Prince Moriada was the third son of Takakura and elder brother of Go-Toba; he later received the title of retired sovereign and was called cloistered emperor. His son was the reigning emperor Go-Horikawa, whose mother was Kitashirakawain, daughter of the Middle Counselor Motoie. Higashi Ichijoin, mother of the former emperor deposed after the Joukyu rising, was the daughter of the late regent Go-Kyogoku Yoshitsune and the consort of Juntoku, who had been moved to Sado. Shomeimon'in was the mother of the retired emperor of Awa, that is Tsuchimikado. Michiie of Komyobuji served as regent and chancellor; his wife was the daughter of Lord Kintsune, his son was the regent Norizane of Toin, and his daughter was the empress Sohekimon'in. Lord Iezane was the son of the Fugenji lord and alternated in the regency with Michiie. The daughter of the Chancellor Kimifusa of Sanjo was later called Akimon'in, and Iezane's daughter Takatsukasain. Kozaisho was the daughter of Ietaka of the second rank, and the Mibu no Kyo no Naishi no Suke the daughter of the Middle Counselor Teika. Hideyoshi took the tonsure after the rising and called himself Nyogan; Yoshimochi served in the Northern Guard, became a monk, and attended the retired emperor in exile.
In the Katei years the retired emperor at Oki judged for himself the poems gathered from the capital. After the rounds on mountain cherry and on a mountain dwelling are quoted, the narrator says that he passed his days distracting himself with such trifles and with devotions to Amida.
These poems were written while he was practising his hand. Two are quoted in succession, both set down as jottings not meant to be shown to anyone.
It follows "Warenagara utomihatenuru minoueni namidabakarizo omogawarisenu", and with these two jottings the quotation of the Oki poems ends.
The narrative then tells that he had lived on that shore some nineteen years and died on the twenty-second day of the second month of En'o 1, at sixty. His wish to return once to the capital had been deep but came to nothing, and even the rites performed for him on a nearby hill are said to have been attended by very few and to have been a desolate sight.

The first line names the old home, the capital or such former dwellings as Minase. The second gives a rocky shore into which the tide has entered, with an auxiliary of completion. The third sets the grass as a noun with an exclamatory particle and breaks off, fixing the figure: the old home is grass on a shore the sea has covered. The lower lines unfold the figure. The fourth line is the evening tide filling in, and when it fills the grass is hidden. At the close, a nominal form of the verb to see declares that the occasions of seeing are few. The alternation of the shore grass, visible at low water and hidden at high, is laid over the rarity of the occasions on which the old home comes to mind, so that a single scene on the coast conveys the passage of time by which even remembrance has grown infrequent. Where the previous poem looked at the change in himself from within, this entrusts the receding of his home to an outward scene, and between them the two close nineteen years from inside and out.

Author

Go-Toba In

Source

Masukagami

Other