[53] なげき (Nageki)

 Poem Meaning and Background

Photo by Darya Jumelya on Unsplash

なげきつつ・ひとりぬるよの・あくるまは
nageki tsutsu・hitori nuru yo no・akuru ma wa

いかにひさしき・ものとかはしる

ikani hisashiki・mono to ka wa shiru

〜右大将道綱母（Udaishō Michitsuna no Haha）

Translation

Lying all alone,

Through the hours of the night,

Till the daylight comes:

Can you realize at all

The emptiness of that night?

Meaning

In the Heian Period, it was common for Japanese noblemen to have multiple wives, and the husband of this author was no exception. In fact, according to his Wikipedia page, he seems to have had at least 8 wives in his lifetime. Because of this, it seems that he rarely visited the author, making her wait for him alone night after night. One day when he did come to visit, she stubbornly refused to open the gate right away. Being forced to wait angered her husband, and he ended up going to another woman's house instead. In retaliation, the author sent him this poem, along with a wilted chrysanthemum. The backstory, along with the poem itself, gives us a clear image of a less than happy marriage. 

The English translation of this is pretty straightforward and seems to capture the meaning well. In the Japanese, かは (ka wa) functions grammatically to make the question at the end rhetorical and we can assume the answer is in fact, no, the husband definitely does not understand his wife's feelings. 

Author

The real name of this author has been lost to history, and she is simply listed as Udaishō Michitsuna no Haha (937 ~ 995), which literally translates to "Michitsuna's Mother". She is also referred to as "The Mother of Fujiwara no Michitsuna". She was the second wife of Fujiwara no Kaneie and their troubled relationship became the basis for another literary classic she authored, the Kagerō Nikki. Fujiwara no Koretada, author of [45] Aware, was her husband's brother, making him her brother-in-law.