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Japanese
English
Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
待賢門院堀河
長からむ
心もしらず
黒髪の
みだれてけさは
物をこそ思へ
みたれてけ
さはものを
こそおもへ
ながか
- Poem 80
- 長からむ
心もしらず
黒髪の
みだれてけさは 物をこそ思へ
Author: Horikawa, attendant to Empress Taiken (dates unknown)
Source: Senzai Wakashū, Love
- English Verse Translation
- My doubt about his constancy Is difficult to bear; Tangled this morning are my thoughts, As
is my long black hair. I wonder—Does he care?
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- Not knowing whether your heart will last — I woke this morning with my long black hair in tangles, lost in thought.
- Commentary
- The headnote in the Senzai Wakashū reads, "composed on the topic of love, when offering a hundred poems." This was a poem on an assigned topic, submitted as part of the Kyūan Hyakushu, a hundred-poem sequence sponsored by Retired Emperor Sutoku (Poem 77). The anxious, restless feelings of a woman left waiting in love are likened to her disheveled black hair. Since long hair was considered a symbol of beauty in the Heian period, its disarray here is thought to symbolize the turmoil within her heart.
- About the Poet
- Horikawa served Empress Taiken (Fujiwara no Shōshi), the birth mother of Retired Emperor Sutoku, and was active as a poet during Sutoku's era. After the Hōgen Rebellion led to Sutoku's exile, Horikawa took Buddhist vows alongside Empress Taiken, and spent her final years at Ninna-ji Temple.
- Horikawa, attendant to Empress Taiken's Chart of the Heart
-
A chart and a modern-language reflection of the poet's inner feelings.
The Poet's Feelings (A Personal Interpretation)
We only just made this promise,
and already my heart is trembling.Even smoothing my tangled black hair,
I cannot smooth this heart that longs for you.
- Poem Illustration
-
This image is based on an illustration from William N. Porter's A Hundred Verses from Old Japan, his 1909 English translation of the Hyakunin Isshu published in England, colorized and reworked using Adobe Firefly (generative AI).