Mishi hito no keburi ni narishi yūbe yori na zo mutsumashiki shiogama no ura

English Translation

Since that evening
when the one I knew so well
turned into smoke,
how dear to me is the name
of the shore of Shiogama.

Meaning

Ever since that evening when the one I knew so well became smoke, even the name of Shiogama Bay, where the salt fires smoke, has grown dear to me.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 820

Headnote: "On seeing a painting of famous places in Michinoku at a time when I was grieving over the fleetingness of the world."
This is the first poem of the sequence remembering the dead through smoke. It says that since the evening when the one she knew became smoke, the name of Shiogama Bay has grown dear to her. According to the headnote, it was composed on seeing a painting of the famous places of Michinoku at a time when she was grieving over the fleetingness of the world.
A daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki, the author served Jōtōmon'in and wrote The Tale of Genji. The headnote does not say whom "mishi hito," the one she knew, refers to.
The scene is the time after losing someone close, set before a painting of the famous places of Michinoku.
The direct occasion is seeing Shiogama Bay in a painting of the famous places of Michinoku.
Shiogama Bay is a famed place in poetry in Michinoku, sung of together with the smoke of salt-making fires where seawater was boiled down. The poem also appears in Murasaki Shikibu shū.

The first line, "mishi hito no," means "of the one I knew well." "Shi" marks the past, referring to one who is now gone.
The second line, "keburi ni narishi," means "who became the smoke" of cremation.
In the third line, "yūbe yori," "yori" marks a starting point, meaning "since that evening." It says that her heart changed from the evening of the cremation.
In the fourth line, "na zo mutsumashiki," "mutsumashi" means dear and beloved. "Zo" is an emphatic binding particle, completed by the attributive "mutsumashiki." It says that the name Shiogama has grown dear because it calls to mind the smoke of salt fires.
The last line, "shiogama no ura," ends on a noun. The smoke of the cremation and the smoke of salt fires rising over Shiogama Bay are linked, so that a distant famed place she has never visited becomes beloved as a name that recalls the dead. Following the evening smoke and clouds of 801 to 803 of this book, here too the dead are seen in smoke. The next poems, 821 and 822, also sing of smoke.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other