Imawatote inochiokagiru wakarejiwa nochinoyonarade itsuotanoman

English Translation

This parting road
on which we set the limit
of a lifetime—
if not in the world to come,
what time is left to hope for?

Meaning

On this parting road we set the limit of a life; if not in the world to come, what time is left to hope for?

Commentary

Book Nineteen: Kume no Sarayama

The spring of Genko 2 came. At the beginning of a new reign even the mere thought of it seems bright. The emperor was young and handsome, everything was splendid, and within the palace nothing appeared changed. At the ceremonies, and at other times too, since the retired emperor and the emperor lived within the same guarded precinct, horses and carriages crowded in without a gap; but not one person of the former world was among them, and only the faces coming and going had changed. The former emperor was still at Rokuhara. In the second month, when the sky hazed over quietly, the spring wind blew softly, the plum at the eaves came fragrant and the warbler sang brightly, all of it sounded only wearisome to a grieving heart. Thinking, perhaps, to give him some diversion through the long days, the empress sent him a lute, and with it wrote a poem on a scrap of paper; he answered. It was decided that he should be moved to the province of Oki, and on the seventh of the third month he left the capital. What he felt at that final moment can hardly be told; the grief in every quarter, and the hearts of those who had served him closely, had nowhere to rest. Recalling what had passed, and seeing how hard it would be ever to return and be at ease, he thought that everything ended here, and could only resent the fate of a former life that had brought this upon him though no one else had done it. He set out about the hour of the serpent in a wickerwork carriage, attended by all the outriders who had served since the late emperor's reign. The Middle Counselor Kinshige of Saionji stood at the carriage porch. On this same day the year before he had held the blossom banquet at Kitayama, and he recalled it with feeling. As he entered the carriage he wrote on the sliding screen beside the room where he had been living. In attendance went the lady of third rank, Dainagon no Kimi and Kozaisho, and among the men only the Middle Captain Yukifusa and the Lesser Captain Tadaaki. From Rokuhara ten warriors of note were chosen as escort, headed by Chiba no Suke Sadatane. From Rokuhara they went west along Seventh Avenue, turned south at Omiya and halted before the gate of Toji. The carriages of onlookers left no room; respectable ladies came in travelling dress and people on foot mingled with them, and young and old, nuns and monks and even rough mountain folk stood crowded like a bamboo grove. Every one of them wiped their eyes and sniffed, and it seemed that the utmost of a wretched world had been reached that day. He too drew the blind a little aside and looked out on this side and that, and there can have been no grass or tree his eye did not rest on. Since men are not wood or stone, even the sleeves of the warriors' armour looked wet. He watched until the treetops of the capital were hidden, still feeling it a dream. At the Toba villa he changed his dress and took a palanquin, and the outriders who were to turn back drove the empty carriage home in tears, hardly able to bear it. At the ford of Yodo, a man called Sasaki the Sado magistrate, now a lay monk, who long ago had served as bridge-officer at a progress to Hachiman, was in the escort; recalling those days, the emperor could not restrain himself and gave him a poem. The next day the prince of Central Affairs set out for Tosa, attended by the Middle Captain Tameakira. His host Tokinobu had felt it an honour that he should be lodged in so poor a house and was busy over his departure. As the prince was leaving he broke a flower from the vase and composed a poem. The same day the Tendai abbot Soncho of Myohoin also set out for Sanuki. The former emperor reached a place called the post of Koyano in the province of Tsu, and gazed at the faint beauty of the evening moon. From Koyano he passed the Muko river, Kanzaki, Naniwa and Sumiyoshi, halting his palanquin at Hirota to worship. Ashiya, the pine grove of Suzume and the Nunobiki falls came into view, and he recalled the progresses of old. At the post of Minatogawa he learned that the prince of Central Affairs was close by at Koya, which was deeply moving, and the prince composed a poem. From the island of Fukuhara the prince took ship. The emperor crossed Wada point and the Karumo river and came to the barrier of Suma, and the waves that the Genji captain said were like the sound of weeping seemed now truly to reach his sleeves. Entering Harima he asked about Shioya and Tarumi, and when told, he remarked that the very names made it a bitter road; the look of him as he leaned out was elegant beyond description. A little past a place called Okuradani stood the tomb of Hitomaro. Passing the bay of Akashi he saw boats faintly disappearing behind the islands. The clear spring of Nonaka, the bay of Futami, the pines of Takasago and other famous places passed before him; on any other journey they would have delighted him, but in his distracted state his eye did not rest on them, and he thought how utterly cast down he had become. On a high mountain ridge the blossom stretched in a line so that one seemed to part white clouds, and, recalling the capital, he composed poems. On the twelfth, while he was at the post of Kakogawa, the prince of Myohoin, on his way to Sanuki by a road that diverged a little, came as far as a place called Noguchi east of the river and sent word; the emperor longed to see him, but the escort would not permit it, and the prince turned back in great distress. On the seventeenth he reached the province of Mimasaka. Feeling unwell, he rested there two or three days; the lodging being makeshift, the warriors on duty saw him close at hand and found him moving and admirable. Turning things over in his mind, he composed poems. On the twenty-first, at a place called Unseiji, the Lesser Captain Tadaaki broke a fine flowering branch and offered it with a poem, and the emperor replied; the captain also sent the same blossom to a warrior called Oyama no Goro with another poem. As they went on, the way behind hazed over indistinctly, and with each day's distance from the capital he felt more forlorn. Even the blossom that had seemed just opening faded further as days and mountains accumulated, and on the winding ascents and descents it lay scattered white, like patches of unmelted snow. Crossing a place called Kume no Sarayama he composed a poem, and again on hearing that there was an Osaka barrier here as well as on the eastern road. At the Mikazuki hill he recalled what Go-Toba had once said, which was itself a bitter precedent. Halfway along the road the escort, high and low, had changed into finer and more modern dress than when they left the capital. About the first of the fourth month, recalling the palace, he composed a poem. From a place called the harbour of Yasugi in Izumo he took ship: twenty-four large vessels, with small craft beyond counting following. As they pushed far out, one more veil of mist made it desolate, and it truly felt like being two thousand leagues away. He reached the island. Of the traces of the past there was not even a sign; dwellings were few, and only the huts of salt-burners lay far off, which was affecting. Setting aside his own case, he thought first of that former exile. A temple called Kokubunji, a little inland from the sea, was cleared out suitably and fixed on as his residence. As he settled to the thought that this was now what his life must be, it still seemed a dream. The prince of Central Affairs also reached Tosa, and gave a poem to the warriors of his escort. In the capital the accession procession was held on the twenty-second of the third month and the world rang with it. The two retired emperors rode together and watched from a carriage near the Taiken gate. The empress remained sunk in grief, her hair uncombed, and with the sorrow of that distant parting her heart had no rest. She was deprived of her position, and heard of the settling of her retired title as though it were another's affair; she is called Reiseimon'in. The lady of third rank who had gone with him had borne him several children. Being still small, they were not sent to distant provinces, but their guardianship was changed and they were placed in the house of the Major Counselor Kinmune of Saionji. The eldest was eight. While at Kitayama, on an evening when the sky was desolate and the mountain wind blew roughly and he felt sadder than usual, he composed a Chinese couplet and a poem. The empress's secretary also rose high and reached the third rank. The young prince born to her had been brought up with great care by the wife of the Major Counselor Morokata of Kazan'in, but was now kept out of sight. The mother too, unable to bear the bitterness of the world, took the tonsure and lived at her devotions with only her tears for company; and when a lady of no great rank with whom she had exchanged occasional letters heard, some time later, that her aunt had also died, she sent a poem, and the lady of third rank replied. Her elder brother, the Middle Counselor Tamesada, had been brilliantly in favour under the former reign and now lived shut away in idleness. His grandfather the Major Counselor Tameyo repeatedly sought the retired emperor's pleasure, but nothing came of it; growing anxious, he petitioned again through the Steward of the Crown Prince's Household, Michiaki. The retired emperor said it was too bad and replied at once with a poem. After the festival, when the world had grown quiet, those nobles who had gone with the former emperor and were most gravely charged were sent to distant provinces. The Major Counselor Kintoshi of Toin went to Shimotsuke, and the Major Counselor Morokata of Kazan'in to Shimosa in the keeping of Chiba no Suke Sadatane, leaving the capital past the tenth of the fifth month, and composed a poem; his wife composed one as well. The Middle Counselor Yukiyuki of the Minamoto was taken east about the same time; that he should be charged most heavily of all suggests some special guilt. The Chief Handmaid at the palace was a daughter of Tsunetomo of the third rank, and had been given to the Middle Counselor while he was still of low rank, so that for years they had lived devoted to one another. Among the many poems of his that were heard in the winter of the previous year there were some, and he composed another at the barrier of Osaka as Sasaki the Sado magistrate, now a lay monk, took him down. They rested a while at a place called Kashiwabara while his keeper waited for an answer from the east. Understanding that his life would not be long, and thinking that if he could keep his mind steady at the end he might go to a clear place, he asked the next day to take the tonsure, and was allowed. It was the nineteenth of the sixth month. Perceiving that the thing would be that day, he composed a poem, and toward evening he was put to death there. The Chief Handmaid at once took the tonsure and entered a temple at Takashima in Omi where people connected with her lived in devotion. The Middle Counselor Fujifusa of Madenokoji was sent to Hitachi, his younger brother the Consultant Suefusa to Shimotsuke, and the Consultant Narisuke was put to death in Suruga. The Middle Counselor Suketomo, exiled at the beginning of the earlier troubles and still on Sado, was also ordered to be put to death, and the verse he spoke as he was about to be beheaded has been handed down. Toshimoto is said to have met the same end. Only the cloistered prince Sonun of Otonomiya had escaped as from the tiger's mouth, and wandered from place to place with no quiet sky, so that it was painful to think how he could live so. On the small island of Oki the months and days passed and the things hard to bear only multiplied. Wondering what fault of his had brought such misery, and resenting only his former life, he resolved to atone for it and gave himself to abstinence and to devotions morning and evening. When he had nothing to do he would go out to a gallery and look far out toward the bay, where fishing boats appeared faintly like autumn leaves afloat, and wondering where they were bound he composed a poem. In the capital, from the tenth month, the purification and the thanksgiving kept the realm in bustle, and the screen poems for the two regions were called for. Since there was no one to write them out, it was proposed to recall the Middle Captain Yukifusa; hearing of it in advance, the emperor said quietly one evening, with no one but that man beside him, that if what they said in the capital were true he would envy him, and gazed at the lamp with eyes wet despite himself, so that the captain too was unmanned and grieved. In the capital the purification procession was on the twenty-fifth of the tenth month and the Gosechi began on the eleventh of the eleventh. The year ended, and from the fourth month the era name had changed to Shokei. The cloistered prince of Otonomiya and Kusunoki Masashige remained of one mind and plotted to overturn the world. Masashige built a great fortress at Chihaya on Kongosan, and since the prince's edicts summoned the warriors of the provinces, all who had a grievance gathered to him. The prince went to Kumano, crossed the Omine range and moved secretly between Yoshino and Koya, hiding well in every corner and showing only a bold face, so that many followed him as a fine commander, and both Rokuhara and the east were much troubled. There was as yet no consort at the palace, so a daughter of the late Inner Minister of Saionji, brought up beside Kogimon'in and called the Lady of Today, was sent in; people thought her a future empress, but for some reason she did not stand high in favour, which was a pity.
The former emperor is Go-Daigo, who leaves the capital on the seventh of the third month of Genko 2, is moved to the province of Oki, and is lodged at the Kokubunji temple. The empress was a daughter of the Saionji house; in this book she is deprived of her position and called Reiseimon'in. The lady of third rank went with him, and the children she had borne were left in the capital in the house of the Major Counselor Kinmune of Saionji. The prince of Central Affairs is Prince Takayoshi, the emperor's eldest son, moved to Tosa in this book. The Tendai abbot Soncho of Myohoin goes to Sanuki, and the cloistered prince Sonun of Otonomiya wanders in hiding. The Middle Captain Yukifusa and the Lesser Captain Tadaaki attended the emperor as far as Oki, and the Middle Captain Tameakira attended the prince of Central Affairs. The senior retired emperor is Go-Fushimi, who governs in this book; the retired emperor of the exchange with Tameyo is the same man. The new retired emperor is Hanazono, and Kogimon'in was Go-Fushimi's consort. The Major Counselor Tameyo was of the house of poetry; the Middle Counselor Tamesada was his grandson and the lady of third rank who served as the empress's secretary his granddaughter. The Major Counselor Morokata of Kazan'in, the Middle Counselor Yukiyuki of the Minamoto, the Middle Counselor Fujifusa of Madenokoji, the Consultant Narisuke, the Middle Counselor Suketomo and Toshimoto were all punished as the former emperor's party. The Chief Handmaid was a daughter of Tsunetomo of the third rank and had long been devoted to Yukiyuki. Kusunoki Masashige, on whom the emperor had counted from the first, built the fortress at Chihaya on Kongosan.
After the festival, when the world had grown quiet, those nobles who had gone with the former emperor and were most gravely charged were sent to distant provinces. The Major Counselor Kintoshi of Toin had taken the tonsure and lived quietly, but even that did not save him, and he was sent to Shimotsuke.
The Major Counselor Morokata of Kazan'in went down to Shimosa in the keeping of Chiba no Suke Sadatane, leaving the capital past the tenth of the fifth month. He was the man who had earlier been sent to Hiei to pass secretly for the emperor.
His wife composed this when the Major Counselor Morokata of Kazan'in went down to Shimosa. She was a daughter of the lay Minister of the Right Iesada of Kazan'in; there were many children by her and by others, but they were not exiled.
Her grief was moving and sad, but since not even a last meeting was permitted she had no way to ease it and brooded over everything, which the narrator calls a wretched state.
The narrative then turns to the Middle Counselor Yukiyuki of the Minamoto, taken east about the same time.

The first line means that this is now the end, placing the finality of the parting first. The second means to make it the limit of a life, that is, the last chance of meeting alive. The third names the road of parting, with a topic particle. In the lower lines, the world to come is the next life, and the phrase means if not there; the closing auxiliary asks what time is left to hope for. Since meeting in this world is cut off, there is nothing to hope for but the life to come. Answering the narrator's note that not even a last meeting was permitted, the poem takes as given that they part without seeing one another. Where her husband's poem speaks of a change in the meaning of a place, this speaks of a limit in time, and of the two times, this world and the next, says that hope can rest only in the latter. That a woman sending a man away without being allowed to see him should move her hope to the most distant of all times shows the weight of this parting.

Author

The Lady of the House

Source

Masukagami

Other