今はよもきしもせしかし大水の
深きこゝろは川と見せつゝ
深きこゝろは川と見せつゝ
- Roma-ji
-
Ima wa yo mo kishi mo seji kashi ōmizu no fukaki kokoro wa kawa to misetsutsu
- English Translation
-
Now, surely, you will
not cross the banks to come to me,
though like the great flood
you show your deep heart as a river,
whose depth is only in words
- Meaning
- Surely you will not come to me now, crossing the banks, though you show me a heart deep as a flooding river, in words alone.
- Commentary
-
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.
When the prince's note saying he had just been out to see the water arrived with "Ōmizu no kishi tsukitaru ni kuraburedo fukaki kokoro wa nao zo masareru," Izumi Shikibu sent back this poem.
After the poem she added, "It is all to no avail." The prince resolved to visit her and called for an incense burner to perfume his robes, but just then his nurse, the Chamberlain's Nurse, appeared and strongly admonished him against going out at night.
The opening lines mean "surely you will not come now," where "kishi" means both the "banks" of his poem and "having come," with a strong negative conjecture and a particle of emphasis.
The remaining lines mean "while showing your heart deep as the flood to be a river," where "kawa," river, also carries the rhetorical "ka wa," implying that there is no such deep heart at all. Catching his "flood," "deep heart" and "banks" one by one, she lightly mocks, through layered wordplay, a lover who sends words but not himself.
- Author
- Izumi Shikibu
- Source
- Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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