大水のきしつきたるにくらふれと
深き心はなをそまされる
深き心はなをそまされる
- Roma-ji
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Ōmizu no kishi tsukitaru ni kuraburedo fukaki kokoro wa nao zo masareru
- English Translation
-
Though I set beside it
the flood that brims up to the banks,
swollen with the rain,
the deep heart that I hold for you
flows deeper even still
- Meaning
- Even when I compare it with the flood that has risen to the very banks, my deep love for you runs deeper still.
- Commentary
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11 The Flood
Around noon on the sixth day of the fifth month, after days of early-summer rain, people heard that the river had risen and went out to see it. The prince also went out and looked at the flood.
The woman is Izumi Shikibu, daughter of Ōe no Masamune and, as the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, mother of Koshikibu no Naishi. The Prince of the Dazaifu is Prince Atsumichi, fourth son of Emperor Reizei, so called because he served as Governor-General of the Dazaifu.
While out viewing the flood, the prince wrote, "How are you now? I have just been out to see the water," and sent this poem, adding, "Did you know as much?"
Izumi Shikibu replied with "Ima wa yo mo kishi mo seji kashi ōmizu no fukaki kokoro wa kawa to misetsutsu," adding, "It is all to no avail." Afterward the prince resolved to visit her, but his nurse would strongly admonish him.
The opening lines mean "though the flood has reached the banks," describing water risen to the brim, and the third line means "even when I compare them," with an adversative particle.
The lower verses mean "my deep heart is deeper still," sealed by an emphatic construction ending in an auxiliary of continuing state. Invoking the flood he has just seen, he proudly declares his love deeper than it, answering too her earlier wish that the waters might rise.
- Author
- Prince Atsumichi
- Source
- Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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Ima wa yo mo kishi mo seji kashi ōmizu no fukaki kokoro wa kawa to misetsutsu