Poem Meaning and Background
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| Photo by Ole Smaadahl on Unsplash |
ありまやま・ゐなのささはら・かぜふけば
Arimayama・ina no sasahara・kaze fukeba
いでそよひとを・わすれやはする
ide soyo hito o・wasure ya wa suru
〜大弐三位（Daini no Sanmi）
Translation
When the wind blows
through the bamboo-grass field of Ina
near Arima Mountain
near Arima Mountain
soyo, so it is:
how could I forget you?
~Translation by Joshua Mostow
~Translation by Joshua Mostow
Meaning
While on the surface, this poem seems to express the author's deep and enduring passion for their lover, there's an interesting backstory behind it. Apparently, the author's lover had not come to visit her for some time, and when pressed for a reason why, he deflected and said he thought that she might have lost interest in him, so he was too nervous to visit. The author was none too pleased with this response, which seemed to shift the blame on to her for his long period of absence. Her reply was this poem, to let her lover know that no, she had not had a change of heart, and perhaps also to say, "Are you sure that you're not the one who's forgotten about me?"
The mountain referenced in this poem is in 有馬郡（arima gun; Arima district), located in what was formerly 摂津国(settsu no kuni), which is now Hyogo Prefecture. 笹原(sasahara) is a field of bamboo grass, and in this case, she's talking about a field of bamboo grass along the side of the 猪名川(Ina gawa; Ina River), which runs through Hyogo. In the second half of the poem, そよ (soyo) is a play on words because it refers to そよそよ(soyosoyo), which is the onomatopoeia, or sound word, for wind blowing softly. It also evokes the image of the wind rustling through the grass. It can also mean そうよそうよ (sōyosōyo) which the translator Mostow turns into "so it is", and represents the author's somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the accusation that she was the one who created this distance between them. The やは（ya wa) at the end serves to negate the 忘れ(wasure; to forget), and in the English version it becomes more of a rhetorical "how could I forget you?"
The mountain referenced in this poem is in 有馬郡（arima gun; Arima district), located in what was formerly 摂津国(settsu no kuni), which is now Hyogo Prefecture. 笹原(sasahara) is a field of bamboo grass, and in this case, she's talking about a field of bamboo grass along the side of the 猪名川(Ina gawa; Ina River), which runs through Hyogo. In the second half of the poem, そよ (soyo) is a play on words because it refers to そよそよ(soyosoyo), which is the onomatopoeia, or sound word, for wind blowing softly. It also evokes the image of the wind rustling through the grass. It can also mean そうよそうよ (sōyosōyo) which the translator Mostow turns into "so it is", and represents the author's somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the accusation that she was the one who created this distance between them. The やは（ya wa) at the end serves to negate the 忘れ(wasure; to forget), and in the English version it becomes more of a rhetorical "how could I forget you?"
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