岡田邦彦

詞書

美人臨鏡

本文

翡翠簾前午景催。
佳人猶未下楼來。
畫眉悠為張郎笑。
■鏡箂回掩復開。

署名

南涯邦彦

読み下だし

英訳

Before the blinds of kingfisher green, midday fast approaching.
The beautiful lady has not yet descended from her room upstairs.
Painting her eyebrows languidly as she smiles at Master Chang,
She opens and closes her makeup mirrors, with one held out behind her.

Line one: The character which we have read as 午, "noon" or "midday," is a tentative identification. The kingfisher has beautiful brightly-colored feathers which were highly prized in China and came to be associated with female beauty.

Line three: The third word 悠 ("anxiously, languidly, from afar," etc.) is only a tentative identification of this character. Colleagues in the Heian jinbutsushi research group suggest that the word might instead be the speculative 恐 (osoraku, "perhaps" or "maybe").
　The phrase 張郎, Master Chang, is an apparent allusion to Chang Ch'ang 張敞, a Han dynasty official who used to paint his wife's eyebrows. When the emperor took him to task over this, Chang replied that women found it quite important to have their eyebrows drawn correctly. For a brief retelling of the story, see Morohashi, vol.7, p.1115, #113 . In this poem, the poet appears to be alluding to Chang Ch'ang in fanciful reference to the lady's male companion.

Line four: Chia 箂 is a variant for chia 夾. The expression 鏡夾 (kyōkyō) denotes a double mirror, whose two mirrors may be used separately.

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