Poem Meaning and Background
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| Depiction of Lady Akazome Emon's poem by the artist Hokusai |
やすらはで・ねなましものを・さよふけて
yasurawade・nenamashi mono o・sayo fukete
かたぶくまでの・つきをみしかな
katabuku made no・tsuki o mishi kana
〜赤染衛門（Akazome Emon）
Translation
Better to have slept
Care-free, than to keep vain watch
Through the passing night,
Till I saw the lonely moon
Traverse her descending path.
Meaning
The author wrote this poem for her sister, after she had waited in vain for Fujiwara no Michitaka, who married the author of [54] Wasure. In the Heian period, noblemen often had multiple wives and numerous love affairs, and Michitaka himself was known for being quite popular. It was also a customary for men to visit women, but not the other way around. If a young woman was in love and wanted to meet, there was nothing they could do but to wait for their lover to come to them. Though it seems Michitaka said he would come to visit, he broke his promise, causing the poet's sister to stay up all night waiting for him. This poem conveys her sister's heartache and loneliness.
In the second line of the poem, 寝なましものを(nenamashi mono wo) means "(if I had known you wouldn't come) I would have slept". In the last line, she says she stayed up watching the moon until it set in the western sky. Most poems about the moon tend to reflect the speaker's loneliness, in part here because it serves as her marker that the night is passing without any sign of her lover. It can also give a sense of distance, or a reminder of being all alone since the moon itself is a solitary figure in the sky.
In the second line of the poem, 寝なましものを(nenamashi mono wo) means "(if I had known you wouldn't come) I would have slept". In the last line, she says she stayed up watching the moon until it set in the western sky. Most poems about the moon tend to reflect the speaker's loneliness, in part here because it serves as her marker that the night is passing without any sign of her lover. It can also give a sense of distance, or a reminder of being all alone since the moon itself is a solitary figure in the sky.
Author
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| Akazome Emon by Komatsuken |
She was officially the daughter of Akazome Tokimochi, but there are records which suggest she was the biological daughter of Taira no Kanemori (author of [40] Shino) who was her mother's first husband.
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