Ushi tote wa idenishi ie o idenu nari nado furusato ni waga kaeriken

English Translation

Finding the world sad,
she who had left home behind
has left home again, they say—
why then to my old home
have I gone back again?

Meaning

She who, finding the world sorrowful, had already left home for the religious life has now, I hear, left her home as well—why, then, have I gone back to my old home?

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 812

Headnote: "On hearing that Jōtōmon'in had secluded herself at Shirakawa after Retired Emperor Go-Suzaku passed away."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence on grief at losing someone close. It says that she who had left home for the religious life, finding the world sorrowful, has now left her house as well, and asks why the poet herself went back to her old home. According to the headnote, it was composed on hearing that after Emperor Go-Suzaku died, his mother Jōtōmon'in had secluded herself at Shirakawa.
A daughter of Chancellor Fujiwara no Norimichi, the author became a consort of Emperor Go-Suzaku. In the text, the author's name carries the note "daughter of the Ōnijō Chancellor," and the Ōnijō Chancellor refers to Norimichi. "Go-Suzaku'in" is Emperor Go-Suzaku, son of Emperor Ichijō and Jōtōmon'in. He died in Kantoku 2 (1045).
The scene is the time after Emperor Go-Suzaku's death, set at the author's family home.
The direct occasion is hearing that Jōtōmon'in had secluded herself at Shirakawa.
Shirakawa is the area east of the capital, on the east side of the Kamo River.

The first line, "ushi tote wa," means "finding the world sorrowful." It places at the opening Jōtōmon'in's weariness with the world.
In the second line, "idenishi ie o," "idenishi ie," the house once left, refers to having left home for the religious life. "Ni shi" marks completion and the past, pointing to Jōtōmon'in's earlier taking of holy orders.
In the third line, "idenu nari," "nu" marks completion and "nari" hearsay, meaning "she has left it, I hear." Repeating the word "ide," it says that one who had left home in taking vows has actually left her dwelling as well to seclude herself at Shirakawa. The poem pauses after the third line.
In the fourth line, "nado furusato ni," "nado" means "why." "Furusato" refers to her own family home, to which she returned after leaving the palace.
In the last line, "waga kaeriken," "ken" expresses conjecture about a past cause and, taking up "nado" in the fourth line, closes as "why did I go back?" Setting Jōtōmon'in, who leaves home, against herself, who returned home, she laments a self that cannot cast away the world. Jōtōmon'in, the author of the preceding poem, 811, is here the one sung of; after the poem of an empress who lost her husband, Emperor Ichijō, there stand side by side a mother who has lost her son, Emperor Go-Suzaku, and a consort who has lost her husband.

Author

Fujiwara no Seishi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other