The Sarashina Diary: the Literary Diary of the Daughter of Sugawara Takasue from 1020 to 1059 (3)

 

     Sei Shonagon (966-1017) once wrote, "Most depressing is the household of some hopeful candidate who fails to receive a post during the period of official appointments."

     Next year, In January, when the appointments of new governors of provinces are announced, my father was looking forward to his appointment at night, but was disappointed in the morning.  A person who might have shared our expectation wrote to me, "I anxiously waited for his happy news till dawn."

I dreamed of hearing good news.

The morning temple bell woke me up from my dream.

Last night was 100 times longer than a long Autumn night.

     I wrote back:

Why did you and I wait for dawn?

The temple morning bell isn’t to tell

Our dream comes true.

     Towards the end of April, I temporarily moved to Higashiyama for a certain reason.  On the way, the nursery beds for rice plants filled with water, and the fields newly planted with rice seedlings looked all rather green and charming.  In the evening, the mountains looked dark and closer.  Rails chattered noisily in such lonely evenings.

Rails cackle as if they were knocking.

Do they think they are successfully deceiving

When humans don’t dare to come deep into the mountains in the evening?

     As our temporary dwelling was near Reizan-ji Temple, I went there to pray.  Fatigued, I drank water from a stone-lined well in the mountain temple, scooping the water with my hand.

Another visitor said, "I could never have enough of this water."

     As once Ki Tsurayuki (866-945) composed:

A drop from the scooped water made the mountain well cloudy

Before I had enough of the water.

Was it a drop of any trouble that separated me from her?

     I declined his advance:

Do you think you can drink enough water

From the mountain well

Without making a drop of any trouble?

     He further approached:

Even if the mountain well becomes cloudy

With a drop of water,

I’d rather keep drinking from the well here.

     We came home from the temple in the full brightness of evening sunshine, and enjoyed a clear view of Kyoto.

     The man who talked about a drop and the cloudy water went back to Kyoto, sorry for parting from me.  In the next morning, he sent a tanka poem:

When the evening sun descends and east mountains became dark,

I helplessly gazed at the mountains

With longing towards where you should be.

     I heard the holy voices of the monks reciting sutras in their morning service and I opened the door.  It was dim early dawn and mist veiled the treetops of the dark forest.  The forest looked thicker than in the time of flowers or red leaves.  It was slightly cloudy this lovely morning.  Cuckoos were singing on the nearby trees.

Together with myself, I need someone

To see the beautiful dawn in the mountain village

And to listen to the repeated sound of cuckoos.

     At the end of that month, cuckoos sang clamorously on trees towards the glen.

In Kyoto, people are awaiting cuckoos to sing.

Here, they carelessly sing

From morning till night.

     One who stayed with me said: "Do you have someone in Kyoto who you want to listen to cuckoos with now?  Do you have someone who you want to see the mountains with now?"  She composed:

Many in Kyoto like to gaze at Luna,

But is there anyone that thinks of the deep mountains

Or is reminded of us hidden here?

     I replied:

I don’t know

What it feels like to see Luna in the dead of night,

But he must think of the mountain village first of all.

     Once, towards dawn, I heard footsteps which sounded to be those of many people coming down the mountain.  I was frightened and looked out.  It was a herd of deer which came close to our veranda.  They cried out.  It was not pleasant to hear them cry nearby.

If I heard the love-call of a deer to its mate,

In Autumn nights upon the distant hills,

It could be fur sweeter.

     I heard that he had come near my temporary dwelling and gone back without calling on me.  So I made a sarcastic tanka poem:

Even the winds among the pine trees in the mountain

That have no acquaintance with me

Depart with murmuring sounds!

     August had come, and more than 20 days had passed.  The moon shone towards dawn and looked very charming.  The mountain-side was gloomy and the waterfall sounded very refined.  I saw them quietly and calmly.

I wish that lovers of nature would see

The after-dawn-waning moon in a mountain village

At the close of an autumn night.

     I left our temporary dwelling to go back to Kyoto.   In the rice-fields which had been covered with water when I came here, rice plants were all harvested.

So long I remained away from home

As the nursed rice in seedbeds were planted,

Grew, and have been all harvested.

     When the end of October was approaching, I visited our old temporary dwelling again.  The leaves of thickly grown trees which had cast a dark shade in the garden had all fallen.  The sight was sorrowful over all.  The babbling brook which used to run sweetly was buried under fallen leaves and I could see only the course of it.

Even water could not live on

In such lonesome stormy mountains.

My heart's also been scattered like the fallen leaves.

     I went back to Kyoto, saying that I should come again the next Spring, could I live so long, to the neighbor nun and begged her to send word when the flowering-time had come.

     The new year came, and it was past March 19th, but there were no tidings from her, so I wrote:

No word about the blooming cherry-blossoms.

Hasn't Spring come for you yet?

Or doesn’t the perfume of flowers reach you?

     I made a journey hopelessly.  My room was beside bamboo wood.   Wind rustled its leaves and the full moon disturbed my sleep:

Night after night, the bamboo leaves sigh.

My dreams are broken.

A vague, indefinite sadness fills my heart.

     In Autumn, 1026, I left there, went to stay elsewhere, and sent a tanka poem to the previous hostess:

I am like a dew on the grass.

It doesn’t matter where the dew falls on.

Everywhere looks like a wasteland.