In this bay
There is no seaweed
Doesn't he know it --
The fisherman who persists in coming
Until his legs grow weary?
(Tr. Helen Craig McCullough)
***
The seaweed gatherer's weary feet
keep coming back to my shore.
Doesn't he know
there's no harvest for him
in this uncaring bay?
(Tr. Hirshfield & Aratani)
***
Is it because
He is unaware this inlet
Has no seaweed
That the fisherman tires his feet
With ceaseless visits to my shore?
(Tr. Sarah M. Strong)
***
Doesn't he realize
that I am not
like the swaying kelp
in the surf,
where the seaweed gatherer
can come as often as he wants?
(Tr. Rexroth & Atsumi)
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This is the poem, on which Komachi's reputation as a femme fatale rests. For an interesting
commentary of this medieval tradition of interpretation, see Strong, Sarah M. 1994.
"The Making of a Femme Fatale. Ono no Komachi in the Early Medieval Commentaries,"
Monumenta Nipponica, 49(Winter):4, pp. 391-412. The translation by Helen Craig McCullough
is from "Ise Monogatari" where the editor has supplied a context missing from "Kokinshû"
(and perhaps unflattering to Komachi).
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