Yama o idete kuraki michi ni zo tadorinishi ima hitotabi no au koto ni yori - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

山をいてゝくらき道にそたとりにし
今一度のあふことにより

Roma-ji: Yama o idete kuraki michi ni zo tadorinishi ima hitotabi no au koto ni yori
English Translation: Leaving the mountain,
I groped my way back again
along the dark road,
all for the sake of meeting you
just one more time again
Meaning: Leaving the mountain, I have groped my way back onto the dark road of this world, all for the sake of meeting you just once more.
Commentary: 21 The Pilgrimage to Ishiyama

When the eighth month came, Izumi Shikibu set out for Ishiyama Temple to ease her idleness, meaning to stay about seven days. Thinking that he had not written for a long time, the prince was about to send a letter when the page boy told him, "I went the other day, but they say she is at Ishiyama Temple these days." "Then today is already over," said the prince. "Go tomorrow morning." The boy came to Ishiyama with the prince's letter. Even before the Buddha, Izumi Shikibu's heart was elsewhere; she longed only for the capital and was saddened to think that such a pilgrimage was a sign of how much her life had changed, and she prayed earnestly to the Buddha. Just then she sensed someone below the railing, and looking down in surprise, she saw the page boy. Moved that he had come to so unexpected a place, she had someone ask why, and he held out a letter. She opened it more eagerly than usual.
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. Ishiyama Temple is a sacred site of Kannon in the province of Ōmi, in present-day Ōtsu, Shiga, reached from the capital by crossing the Ōsaka Barrier.
After she returned from Ishiyama to the capital, the prince's "Asamashi ya nori no yamaji ni irisomete miyako e isa to tare sasoiken" arrived, teasing her for leaving the mountain so hastily, and Izumi Shikibu replied with this poem alone.
Later, on a day at the end of the eighth month when an autumn gale raged, a letter came from the prince that seemed to understand the moment perfectly, and she felt she could forgive his recent neglect.

The first line means "leaving the mountain," that is, Ishiyama Temple. The second and third lines mean "I have groped my way along the dark road," the dark road being the world of worldly passion as opposed to the light of the Buddha's path, here the secular world of love; an emphatic construction closes with auxiliaries of completion and past.
The lower verses mean "for the sake of meeting you once more." Answering his "mountain road of the Law," she replies to his teasing with sincerity: she left the Buddha's path and the mountain because she wanted to meet him once again. The phrase "meeting once more" also appears in Izumi Shikibu's poem in the Goshūi Wakashū, "Arazaramu kono yo no hoka no omoide ni ima hitotabi no au koto mo gana," an expression truly characteristic of a woman who lived for love.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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