Katamori Matsudaira · Aizu

Original

今もなほ
慕ふ心は
変はらねど
二十年余り
世は過ぎにけり

Katamori Matsudaira's waka, "今もなほ慕ふ心は変はらねど". Read the original Japanese, modern translation, interpretation, and historical context as distinct parts of the poem.

Person

Lord of Aizu who served as Kyoto Protector and later as chief priest of Nikko Toshogu.

Learn about Matsudaira Katamori

Translation

Even now my devoted heart has not changed, though more than twenty years have passed through the world.

Poetic Shape

Tanka compresses feeling into five short movements, traditionally heard as a 5-7-5-7-7 rhythm. Its force is in the turn from image to emotion, and in what the poem leaves unsaid.

Reading

The opening 'even now' carries mourning into the present, but the poem itself does not name the people being longed for.A later memorial inscription presents it as a verse for the twenty-third memorial of those killed in the Boshin War, supporting a reading centered on Aizu's dead.The adversative 'though' turns from feeling to the changed world: the domain and its former bonds were gone, while remembrance remained.

Background

More than twenty years after the Boshin War, memorial observances for Aizu's dead continued among the former domain community; the inscription on Iimoriyama transmits this poem with a heading for the twenty-third memorial of those killed in the war, placing Katamori's words within that act of mourning; although the poem does not explicitly name whom he still longs for, the heading supports reading it first as remembrance of Aizu retainers who died in the conflict, while its pivotal 'though' sets an unchanged attachment against a Meiji world already changed beyond recognition.

Source / Transmission

Authorship and the opening line are confirmed by the Aizu Library catalog. The full wording and Boshin War memorial heading follow the Iimoriyama memorial tradition; the catalog gives no date.