Harusamewa yomonokusakio wakanedomo shigekimegumiwa wagaminarikeri

English Translation

The rain of spring
makes no distinction among
the grasses and trees,
and yet the thickest of its blessing
has fallen upon me

Meaning

The spring rain makes no distinction among the grasses and trees on every side, and yet the thickest of its blessing has fallen on me.

Commentary

Book Seven: Orii-ru Kumo

In Koen 1 the second daughter of the chancellor Saneuji entered the palace as consort. Being the sister of Omiya-in she was somewhat past the usual age, though the narrator says there are many such precedents. On the seventeenth of the twelfth month, at the season of the harvest banquet, when the palace was already brilliant, this added to it a fresh splendour, and a letter was sent that day. The regent wrote it out, and it was folded and tied in eight layers of crimson-graded paper without gold leaf. When the hour came the household assembled; the consort wore seven layers of dark-lined sappanwood, a deep unlined robe, a sappanwood outer robe, a red Chinese jacket and deep-dyed trousers, and the junior empress went with her. There were ten carriages, and even the page girls, the lower servants and the maids had been chosen for their looks. Her brothers, the Minister of the Right Kinsuke and the Inner Minister Kinmoto, attended, in the greatest state. Since she had also been made a daughter of the retired emperor, the care taken over her was past describing; the narrator guesses at the precedent of Taikenmon'in, who entered Toba's palace as Shirakawa's adopted daughter. An attendant of the retired emperor's full sister, now called empress, came as messenger. The emperor was fourteen and the consort twenty-five. Being so young, he might have been thought slight, but he spoke to her wittily and without shyness, which the junior empress found charming. On the twenty-third another letter came, brought by the Head Chamberlain Michiyo, and again written out by the lord: at this time the lord meant Kanehira, later chancellor, younger brother of the lord of Okanoya, afterwards called the Shonenin lord. His hand was outstanding, and he is reckoned the founder of the Takatsukasa house. The chancellor made the reply, and a woman's robe with a long overgarment was bestowed. That day the emperor visited the consort's apartments for the first time; the Head Chamberlain Takaaki carried the ceremonial rice cakes, and the chancellor took them in from the sleeping chamber. One can imagine what he felt. The year ended, and in the first month she was raised to empress. That the daughters of an ordinary subject should stand in succession as empress and mother of the realm is rare indeed; it was the minister's good fortune. Both his sons were ministers, Kinsuke and Kinmoto, and stood as commanders of the Left and Right. When as chancellor he attended the Saishoko with two commanders in his train, the splendour of it was thought remarkable. As the father of an empress and of the mother of the realm, and grandfather of the emperor, he seemed truly equal to his position. Shimotsuke, who had long ago served Go-Toba, was an old woman of that former world, and sent the minister a poem. He replied, and reflecting on the prosperity of his house he composed another poem of his own. From the spring of Shoka 1 Shomeimon'in grew gravely ill; the retired emperor was much alarmed and had rites performed, but she died on the fifth of the seventh month at eighty-seven. It was a natural age, yet she was the last trace of the old days, and he ordered her memorial services with care. In the eighth month of the next year the second prince, aged ten, became crown prince; he is the later Kameyama. On the twentieth of the third month of Shoka 3 came the pilgrimage to Koya, a commotion through the realm such as seemed to have no precedent before or since. Horses and saddles, and the hair, faces, height and bearing of guardsmen, grooms, servants and pages, were all selected; silver and gold were beaten out and Chinese and Japanese brocades exhausted, so that no brocade of the goddess of autumn could match it. The Major Counselor Akisada, son of the Inner Minister Sadamichi of Go-Tsuchimikado, had hoped for a commandership, but Lord Kinmoto received it; unable to bear his resentment he took the tonsure and secluded himself on Koya. The retired emperor sent word that he would visit his cell and see him, but though he had been there the day before, in the course of the night he swept the hut bare, left no trace, scattered white sand as if on purpose, and was gone. He had fled up to the Hamuro villa at Katsura. When this was reported, the retired emperor said that he must mean never to be seen again, and called it a hard heart. Progresses were frequent; at the Yoshida residence poetry contests were often held, and he stayed long at the Toba villa, where at a spring visit the emperor took part in kickball with the regent Yoshizane of Nijo leading the play. He also built a fine residence at the foot of Kameyama in Saga, on the north bank of the Oi river, where the treetops of Ogura and the Tonase falls seemed to lie within his own fence. On the site of the ruined Danrinji he built the Jokongoin, made the holy man Dokan its elder, and established the Pure Land school there. On the fifth of the third month of Shogen 1, at the height of the blossom at the Saionji, Omiya-in held a dedication of the complete scriptures. She had planned it for years without the retired emperor's knowing much of it, and since it was a woman's vow and an admirable, rare thing, he joined in the arrangements. There was an imperial visit that day, and the crown prince came too. At the music of the following day the emperor played the lute and the crown prince the flute; the prince was still very small, his hair in loops, his face perfectly formed, and the sound he raised rang through the heavens so awesomely that the chancellor could not observe the proprieties of the occasion but wiped his eyes and could not compose himself, and the sleeves of the older ministers and nobles were all wet. When the music ended the writing stand was brought out, and the imperial poem and the host's were exchanged. On the morning after the party returned, the minister composed another poem beneath the blossom at the Muryokoin. On the twenty-eighth of the eighth month of that year the crown prince came of age at eleven, with the personal name Tsunehito. Because there were various rumours abroad the emperor felt uneasy and forlorn, and during a quiet conversation in the night watch he counted the days of his worship before the sacred mirror, which came to five thousand and seventy-four; on hearing this Ben no Naishi composed a poem. On the twenty-sixth of the eleventh month, the night of his abdication, even the sky was affecting, with rain falling and everything looking mournful, so that the old poem of the Lady Ise came to mind as though it were the present. He had prepared himself, but when the regalia were carried out—for they had never left him even on ordinary progresses—the parting from thirteen years was still hard to bear, and Ben no Naishi, seeing how he could not master himself, composed a poem.
The chancellor is Saneuji of Saionji, father of Omiya-in and grandfather of the emperor Go-Fukakusa. His second daughter entered as consort and was raised to empress, later called Higashi Nijoin. Her brothers, the Minister of the Right Kinsuke and the Inner Minister Kinmoto, were both Saneuji's sons and stood as commanders of the Left and Right. The lord, that is the regent, was Kanehira, younger brother of Lord Kanetsune of Okanoya, later called the Shonenin lord and reckoned the founder of the Takatsukasa house; his hand was outstanding. The retired emperor is Go-Saga, the emperor Go-Fukakusa, and the second prince the later Kameyama. The empress was the retired emperor's full sister. Shomeimon'in was the mother of Tsuchimikado and the retired emperor's grandmother. Shimotsuke was an old lady who had served Go-Toba long before. Ben no Naishi was the daughter of Lord Nobuzane and the sister of Shosho no Naishi. The Major Counselor Akisada was the son of the Inner Minister Sadamichi of Go-Tsuchimikado.
In the first month of Koen 2 the consort was raised to empress. The narrator remarks that it is rare for the daughters of an ordinary subject to stand in succession as empress and mother of the realm. Both the minister's sons were ministers as well, Kinsuke and Kinmoto, and stood as commanders of the Left and Right.
When as chancellor he attended the Saishoko with the two commanders in his train, the splendour of it was thought remarkable. As the father of an empress and of the mother of the realm, and grandfather of the emperor, he seemed truly equal to his position.
After the exchange with Shimotsuke, he composed this on reflecting that the prosperity of his house was remarkable even to himself. It belongs to a moment when his daughters had stood in succession as empress and mother of the realm and his two sons stood as commanders of the Left and Right, a fortune rare for a subject.
The narrative then moves to the death of Shomeimon'in at eighty-seven on the fifth of the seventh month of Shoka 1, and to the second prince becoming crown prince at ten in the eighth month of the following year.

The first line makes the rain that nourishes all things the subject, and the second spreads its reach over the grasses and trees on every side. The verb in the third line means to divide or distinguish, with a concessive: the spring rain falls without choosing among them. To this point the poem states a general truth, and rain as a figure for a sovereign's bounty is an old convention. In the lower lines the general truth is drawn onto himself. The adjective in the fourth line means abundant or thick, and the noun for blessing means both the moisture of the rain and the favour of a sovereign. The exclamatory auxiliary at the close marks the recognition that it is he who has received most of it. To say that a rain which should fall on all alike has watered him in particular is to receive good fortune as something unexpectedly given rather than to boast of it, and where the previous poem offered a stretch of years to another, this solitary piece traces the source of the bounty back to the retired emperor.

Author

Fujiwara no Saneuji

Source

Masukagami

Other