If, against my will, I go on living in this sorrowful world, I will surely look back with longing on tonight's midnight moon.
Emperor Sanjō (976–1017) was the sixty-seventh emperor of Japan, a son of Emperor Reizei. After long years as crown prince he finally took the throne at thirty-six, but he reigned for only five years. Fujiwara no Michinaga, the most powerful man of the age, wanted his own grandson (the future Emperor Go-Ichijō) on the throne as soon as possible, and kept pressing him to abdicate. The palace burned down twice during his reign, and the emperor himself was losing his sight to an eye disease. This poem is Goshūi Wakashū, Miscellaneous I, 860. Its headnote reads: 'When he was gravely ill and thinking of giving up the throne, he saw the moon shining brightly.' The Eiga Monogatari says it was the moon of a night just past the tenth of the twelfth month, 1015. He abdicated the following year and died the year after that. The moon he looked up at with his dimming eyes was a moon he would never see the same way again.
Nothing is going the way he wishes. He does not even want to go on living. And yet — if he should happen to live on, he knows already that he will long for this moon. A man in the very middle of a painful time foresees that his future self will look back on this painful night with longing. It is a lament, and yet somewhere it cherishes tonight. The 'beki' of 'koishikaru beki' is not a wish but a certainty. It is a poem of eyes fixed on what they know they are about to lose, before they lose it.
What drew us most to this poem is that what he will miss is not the moon itself but the moon he can see now — this one moment that will not come back. Someone in the middle of a painful time knows in advance that his future self will long for this painful night. To make this a song for today's students, we wanted to place it not in a radiant youth but in the middle of days that are not going well. The original 'nagaraeba' — 'if I should live on' — is a passive word. The emperor is not running; he is enduring. So the lyrics never say 'if you do your best'. Even if you cannot run, even with your head down, these days will not come back, and so you will miss them. The poem has no rhetorical devices and blames no one, and the lyrics follow the same manners: plain words, no one at fault, never 'it will be all right', never 'treasure it'. The words 'will not come back' are never used. To eyes that have just realised there are only a few more times to walk this road, the lights in the windows look a little more blurred than usual — and there we quietly laid the eyes of the emperor who, it is said, was losing his sight. In the bridge the singer asks whether the grown-up self will remember this night, and gives no answer. Right after it, the old poem alone is sung whole, without a word added: a reply from a thousand years ago. The final chorus says that what will be missed is not only the moon, but the self who walked with head down, and these days that will not go well. And the song ends on 'Tomorrow, I can walk again': the road the future self will long for is, for now, still in our hands. That is the small hope we took from this poem.
心にも（後拾遺集/三条院・百人一首68番）Garu JP
今日も うまく 笑えなかった
うつむいたままの 帰り道
ふと 顔を 上げると そこに
電線ごしの 月が いた
思いどおりに ならない日々を
それでも 歩いて いったなら
心にも あらで 憂き世に
ながらへば いつか
恋しかるべき 夜半の月かな
きっと 恋しく なるんだろう
いま 見上げてる この月が
この道を こうして 歩くのも
あと 数える ほどしか ない
窓の 明かりが ひとつずつ
いつもより にじんで 見える
なにも 言っては くれないけど
月は 家まで ついてくる
心にも あらで 憂き世に
ながらへば いつか
恋しかるべき 夜半の月かな
それでも 歩いて いったなら
きっと 恋しく なるんだろう
いつか 大人に なった ぼくは
この夜を 覚えてるかな
うつむいた わけは 忘れても
この道 歩きたいかな
心にも あらで憂き世に ながらへば
恋しかるべき 夜半の月かな
それでも 歩いて いったなら
きっと 恋しく なるんだろう
電線ごしの 今夜の 月も
うつむいていた ぼくも
うまく いかない この日々も
夜半の月かな……
あしたも 歩ける
Kokoro ni mo (Goshui-shu / Emperor Sanjo, Hyakunin Isshu No. 68) Garu JP
I could not smile properly again today
Walking home with my head still down
I happen to lift my face, and there —
through the power lines, the moon
These days that will not go the way I want —
if I keep walking through them anyway
Against my wishes, in this painful world,
if I live on — someday
how dear this midnight moon will surely be
Surely I will come to miss it
this moon I am looking up at now
Even walking this road like this —
there are only a few times left to count
The lights in the windows, one by one,
look more blurred than usual
It does not say a word to me
but the moon follows me all the way home
Against my wishes, in this painful world,
if I live on — someday
how dear this midnight moon will surely be
If I keep walking anyway
surely I will come to miss it
Someday, when I have grown up,
will I remember this night?
Even if I forget why my head was down,
will I want to walk this road?
If, against my wishes, I live on in this painful world,
how dear this midnight moon will surely be
If I keep walking anyway
surely I will come to miss it —
tonight's moon through the power lines,
the me who walked with my head down,
and these days that will not go well
This midnight moon...
Tomorrow, I can walk again