Teruhime · Aizu

Original

夢うつつ
思ひも分かず
惜しむぞよ
まことある名は
世に残るとも

Person

Adoptive elder sister of Aizu lord Matsudaira Katamori, remembered as a spiritual support for women during the Aizu War. Teruhime's poem is not her own death poem, but a memorial gaze toward one who served with sincerity. Remembered as mourning Kayano Gonbei, who bore responsibility after the Aizu War, it shows that even when a faithful name remains in history, grief still trembles between dream and waking.

Translation

Between dream and waking, I cannot sort my thoughts and grieve for him; even if the name of true sincerity remains in 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

This is not her own death poem, but a poem of mourning for one who served with sincerity. The wavering between dream and waking belongs to someone left behind who cannot fully receive reality. Even if a name remains honorably in history, grief is not consoled by that fact. Aizu's defeat is seen from the side of the one who mourns.

Background

Remembered as a poem by Teruhime mourning Kayano Gonbei. After the Aizu War, Kayano bore responsibility and went to his death leaving a name of sincerity. The poem preserves not only the one who dies, but the aftertaste carried by the one who receives that death. Read as an Aizu poem, it joins the beauty of loyalty with a loss that beauty cannot fill.