Hito o nao uramitsu beshi ya miyakodori ari ya to dani mo tou o kikaneba

English Translation

Should I, after all,
hold resentment toward that one?
O bird of the capital,
for not even "Are you well?"
do I ever hear them ask.

Meaning

Should I resent that person after all? Like the old poem that asked the capital bird, not even the simple question "Are you well?" ever reaches me.

Commentary

Book Ten Travel Poems 908

Headnote: "Sent to someone from Ise."
This is the fourth of a sequence of travel poems by poets of the Heian period. Recalling the old poem that asked the capital bird "Are you well?", the speaker, hearing not even that much from the one she thinks of, wonders whether she should resent that person after all, an appeal sent from Ise to someone in the capital. According to the headnote, it was sent to someone from Ise.
The author, Princess Kishi, was a daughter of Prince Shigeakira, a son of Emperor Daigo. She went down to Ise as Ise Priestess and later became a consort of Emperor Murakami, known as the Priestess Consort. She is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The scene is her stay in Ise, and the place is Ise.
The direct occasion is sending a poem from Ise to someone in the capital.
The poem draws on "If you bear the name, let me ask you, capital bird: does the one I love still live or not?", included in Travel Poems of the Kokin Wakashū as a poem by Ariwara no Narihira and also found in Section 9 of The Tales of Ise. That poem asks after someone left in the capital upon hearing the bird's name by the Sumida River, and this poem takes up its words "ari ya."

The first line, "hito o nao," means "that person, after all." "Hito" is the one in the capital who sends no word.
The second line, "uramitsu beshi ya," means "should I resent them?" "Tsubeshi" joins the intensive "tsu" to "beshi," and with the final particle "ya" the speaker asks herself whether resentment is due. The poem breaks after this second line.
The third line, "miyakodori," is the bird asked about someone in the capital by the Sumida River in the old poem. By calling up the bird's name from Ise, the speaker reveals her longing for the capital.
The fourth line, "ari ya to dani mo," means "not even 'Are you well?'" It takes up "ari ya nashi ya to" from the source poem, and "dani" names the least of things to show that even that is lacking.
The last line, "tou o kikaneba," means "for I do not hear them ask." The realis form with "ba" gives the reason, and by inversion the cause of her resentment comes last. Where Narihira's 904, from the same Section 9 journey to the East, laments failing to meet someone in the capital, this poem, from one far from the capital, laments not being asked after, and the two are set together as poems thinking of the capital from afar.

Author

Princess Kishi

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other