Speaking of My Children
This poem was written in 888 when Michizane, then forty-four, was governor of Sanuki. In this example, the disparaging remarks about his children and the elegiac tone might be read as cliches, but the concerns expressed may have been real. Michizane was certainly far from home, and the Sugawara held only middling status among court aristocrats. Their success was based on the literary skills of Michizane and his immediate forebears.
My sons are foolish, my daughters ugly: such is their nature.
The proper times to celebrate their adulthood have slipped by.
Flowers that bloom on a winter tree lack crimson hue.
Birds raised in a dark valley are slow to take wing.
My family has no property; it must rely on me.
My profession is literature, but who shall inherit it?
Such thoughts are as pointless as lamenting old age,
yet when I speak of my children so far away, I feel sad.
My sons are foolish, my daughters ugly: such is their nature.
The proper times to celebrate their adulthood have slipped by.
Flowers that bloom on a winter tree lack crimson hue.
Birds raised in a dark valley are slow to take wing.
My family has no property; it must rely on me.
My profession is literature, but who shall inherit it?
Such thoughts are as pointless as lamenting old age,
yet when I speak of my children so far away, I feel sad.
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