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Hyakunin Isshu No. 53 · Mother of Michitsuna (Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha)Nagekitsutsu

“A Long, Long Night” — Mother of Michitsuna (Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha)Source: Shūi Wakashū, Love IV · 912
嘆きつつ ひとり寝る夜の 明くる間は
いかに久しき ものとかは知る
Nagekitsutsu hitori nuru yo no akuru ma wa
ika ni hisashiki mono to ka wa shiru
Grieving, I lie alone — and the hours until this night breaks into dawn,
do you know how long they are? No, you do not.
Hyakunin IsshuShūi WakashūLoveWaitingJealousy & ResentmentA room on a night of sleeping alone
Nagekitsutsu jacket art▶

What the poem says

Do you have any idea how long the night is, when I lie alone, sighing, waiting for it to end?

Music Video

ミュージックビデオ

The Story

歌のものがたり

Historical Background

The Mother of Michitsuna (Fujiwara no Michitsuna no Haha, c. 936–995) was a mid-Heian poet and the author of the Kagerō Diary. A daughter of Fujiwara no Tomoyasu, she became one of the wives of Fujiwara no Kaneie, later regent, and bore his son Michitsuna. Tradition counts her among the three great beauties of the realm, and she is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals of the Middle Antiquity. Aristocratic society was polygamous and marriage was a 'visiting marriage': the husband came to the wife's house. Kaneie had a principal wife, Tokihime, and other wives and lovers, which was itself ordinary; so the anger of this poem is not quite modern anger at an affair. A wife's standing depended on how often her husband came, and nights when he did not come were proof that she was being put second — the days of waiting she recorded in her diary. The poem is Shūi Wakashū, Love IV, 912; in the diary it belongs to the year 955. Learning that Kaneie was visiting 'the woman of Machi no Kōji', she did not open the gate when he finally came one night, and the next morning sent him this poem with a faded chrysanthemum. To his excuse that he had grown tired of waiting for the gate to open, she answered: do you know how long a night is for one who waits alone? It is a poem that confronts the one who kept her waiting with the length of the time she waited.

The Poet's Heart

A night when the one who should come does not. Grieving, lying alone, how long the hours are until dawn — you would not know. The poem does not end on 'know'; it throws the question back, and there lies her strength. She does not end in tears. Not opening the gate, and sending this poem, were both refusals to be merely a woman who waits. And yet at the core of the poem is 'I wanted you to come'; the anger is the other face of love. The length of the waiting is the length of the time she spent thinking of him.

What We Put into the Lyrics

What drew us most to this poem is the strength of saying only 'the night is long' and never once 'I miss you'. Marriage then was polygamous, and the circumstances are nothing like ours; but one thing has not changed in a thousand years — the one who keeps you waiting does not know how long the night is. So we kept only that. In today's scene someone says 'I'll come today', the message stays unread, the date changes, and only the clock in the room grows louder. The chorus sings the poem as it is and then translates it, repeats 'it was a long, long night' three times and changes only the fourth: 'Morning came, and it was still night.' The poem says the hours until dawn are long; for the one who waited, the night does not end even when dawn comes. In the final chorus the line turns: 'It was a night spent for you.' If you were someone I did not care about, I would have slept — the long night was, all of it, time spent thinking of you. It is our way of saying what lies under the anger without saying 'I miss you'. Not only for lovers: a song for anyone whose waiting goes unseen. We set it as midnight piano funk-rock — the body lies still while the mind keeps racing — with a cool female voice that refuses to cry, and it ends, like the poem, on a question.

Lyrics

歌詞
Japanese

嘆きつつ（拾遺集/右大将道綱母・百人一首53番）Garu JP

Verse 1

「今日 行く」と言った あなたを待って

時計の音が 大きくなった

既読が つかないまま

日付が 変わった

Pre-Chorus

一分が 一時間みたいで

窓の外が 白くなるまで

目を閉じても 眠れなかった

Chorus

嘆きつつ ひとり寝る夜の 明くる間は

いかに久しき ものとかは知る

ひとりで待つ夜が どれだけ長いか

あなたは 知らないでしょう

長い 長い 夜だった

長い 長い 夜だった

長い 長い 夜だった

朝が 来ても 夜だった

Verse 2

夜が明けて あなたが来た

「遅くなった」と ドアの向こう

「ごめん」より先に 言い訳が来た

鍵に 手をかけて 回さなかった

Pre-Chorus 2

ドア一枚 はさんで 黙っていた

あなたの一晩と 私の一晩は

同じ長さじゃ なかった

Chorus 2

嘆きつつ ひとり寝る夜の 明くる間は

いかに久しき ものとかは知る

ひとりで待つ夜が どれだけ長いか

あなたは 知らないでしょう

長い 長い 夜だった

長い 長い 夜だった

長い 長い 夜だった

朝が 来ても 夜だった

Bridge

千年前の人も 来ない人を待って

門をたたく音に 出ていかなかった

朝になって 歌を一首

色のあせた 菊に添えて 渡した

Final Chorus

嘆きつつ ひとり寝る夜の 明くる間は

いかに久しき ものとかは知る

どうでもいい人なら 眠れていた

待つ夜の長さを 知ってほしかった

長い 長い 夜だった

長い 長い 夜だった

長い 長い 夜だった

あなたの ための 夜だった

Outro

いかに久しき……

ねえ 知ってる？

English

Nagekitsutsu (Shui-shu / Mother of Michitsuna, Hyakunin Isshu No. 53) Garu JP

You said, "I'll come today," and I waited for you

The ticking of the clock grew louder

My message still unread

The date changed

One minute felt like an hour

Until the window turned white

I closed my eyes and could not sleep

Grieving, I lie alone — and the hours until this night breaks into dawn,

do you know how long they are? No, you do not.

How long a night is when you wait alone —

you would not know

It was a long, long night

It was a long, long night

It was a long, long night

Morning came, and it was still night

The night broke, and you came

"Sorry I'm late," from the other side of the door

Before any "I'm sorry," the excuses came

I put my hand on the lock and did not turn it

With one door between us, I said nothing

Your one night and my one night

were not the same length

Grieving, I lie alone — and the hours until this night breaks into dawn,

do you know how long they are? No, you do not.

How long a night is when you wait alone —

you would not know

It was a long, long night

It was a long, long night

It was a long, long night

Morning came, and it was still night

A thousand years ago, someone waited for one who did not come

and did not go out when he knocked at the gate

When morning came, she wrote one poem

and sent it with a faded chrysanthemum

Grieving, I lie alone — and the hours until this night breaks into dawn,

do you know how long they are? No, you do not.

If you were someone I did not care about, I would have slept

I wanted you to know how long a waiting night is

It was a long, long night

It was a long, long night

It was a long, long night

It was a night spent for you

How long it is...

Hey — do you know?

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