How I wish I could show you my sleeves — even the fishermen's sleeves on Ojima, drenched and drenched again, never change their color, but mine are stained with tears of blood.
Inpumon'in no Taifu (c. 1130–1200) was a woman poet of the late Heian period, daughter of Fujiwara no Nobunari, who served Princess Ryōshi (Inpumon'in), a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. So prolific that she was nicknamed 'Taifu of the thousand poems', she joined the Karin-en salon of the priest Shun'e, exchanged poems with Fujiwara no Teika, Jakuren, Saigyō and Minamoto no Yorimasa, and competed in many poetry contests; in 1192 she became a nun when her mistress took vows. One of the Thirty-Six Women Immortals, she has about sixty-five poems in imperial anthologies. This poem is Senzai Wakashū, Love IV, 884, composed on the topic of love at a poetry contest. It takes as its model a poem by Minamoto no Shigeyuki — 'the sleeves of the fishers of Ojima were never as soaked as mine' — and raises it by one step: not merely soaked, but changed in color. Tears that stain a sleeve — 'tears of blood' — were a conventional hyperbole of Heian love poetry, and in the competitive setting of a contest she outdoes her predecessor with wit.
'If only I could show you' — the poem opens with a wish. The sleeves of the fishers of Ojima are soaked in seawater every day, yet their color never changes. Mine are different: tears have changed their color. I want to show you, and you will not look. She never states the complaint as a complaint; she compares her sleeves with sleeves that never change, and lets the comparison say that hers are worse — pride and an unhidden hurt live side by side in that way of competing. Written for a contest, the love may be only a topic. Yet the single phrase 'misebaya na' still rings true a thousand years later.
What drew us to this poem was its contradiction: it begins with 'I want to show you' and sings of something that cannot be shown. The same sleeves exist tonight. Walking home in the rain without an umbrella, the rain soaks the sleeves but cannot change their color; a color that will not wash out stays on the inside of the sleeve, and the dried shirt is folded with a face as if nothing happened. We took the poem's opening five syllables, 'misebaya na', and its built-in repetition, 'wet, wet', as the hook of the chorus. There is almost no word of feeling — only wet, dry, and a color that will not fade. The bridge — 'that tears could change a color sounds like a lie, and is true' — takes the old hyperbole of tears of blood at face value, the way someone who knows it is exaggeration and knows it is true would say it. Not only for love: a song for anyone hiding a hurt who still wants someone to see it. That is what we put into this song, set as rainy-night alternative pop with a trip-hop pulse, piano and strings, and a low, restrained voice that opens wide in the chorus.
見せばやな（千載集/殷富門院大輔・百人一首90番）Garu JP
傘を持たずに 帰る夜
袖が少しずつ 重くなる
傘を持たずに 帰る夜
袖が少しずつ 重くなる
雨はどれだけ 濡らしても
色までは 変えられない
見せたいものが ひとつある
誰にも 見せられないもの
見せばやな 雄島の海人の 袖だにも
濡れにぞ濡れし 色は変はらず
濡れて 濡れて 濡れても
変わらない 袖があるなら
変わってしまった この袖を
見せばやな あなたに
朝には乾いた シャツを畳む
洗っても 落ちない色が
袖の裏に 残ったまま
何も無かった 顔をする
見せたいものが ひとつある
見せたら 終わってしまうもの
見せばやな 雄島の海人の 袖だにも
濡れにぞ濡れし 色は変はらず
濡れて 濡れて 濡れても
落ちない色が ここにある
笑っている 私の 袖の裏を
見せばやな あなたに
いにしえの人も 同じように
泣いた袖を 歌にした
涙で色が 変わるなんて
嘘みたいで 本当のこと
見せばやな 雄島の海人の 袖だにも
濡れにぞ濡れし 色は変はらず
濡れて 濡れて 濡れても
変わらない 袖があるなら
変わってしまった この袖を
見せばやな 見せばやな
色は変はらず……
見せばやな
Misebaya na (Senzai-shu / Inpumon'in no Taifu, Hyakunin Isshu No. 90) Garu JP
Walking home at night without an umbrella
My sleeves slowly growing heavier
Walking home at night without an umbrella
My sleeves slowly growing heavier
However much the rain soaks them
It cannot change their color
There is one thing I want to show
Something I can show no one
If only I could show you — even the sleeves of the fishers of Ojima
Are soaked through and through, yet their color never changes
Wet, wet, and wet again
If there are sleeves that never change
Then these sleeves of mine that have changed
If only I could show them to you
By morning the shirt is dry, and I fold it
A color that will not wash out
Still there on the inside of the sleeve
And I put on a face as if nothing happened
There is one thing I want to show
Something that would end the moment I showed it
If only I could show you — even the sleeves of the fishers of Ojima
Are soaked through and through, yet their color never changes
Wet, wet, and wet again
A color that will not fade is here
The inside of the sleeve of the woman who keeps smiling
If only I could show it to you
Someone long ago, in just the same way
Put her tear-stained sleeves into a song
That tears could change a color
Sounds like a lie, and is true
If only I could show you — even the sleeves of the fishers of Ojima
Are soaked through and through, yet their color never changes
Wet, wet, and wet again
If there are sleeves that never change
Then these sleeves of mine that have changed
If only I could show you, if only I could show you
Their color never changes...
If only I could show you