Like the pale young purple of Kasuga Plain,
a robe rubbed with dye—my hidden thoughts are tangled beyond all measure.
- Meaning
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Like the young purple of Kasuga Plain, you are fresh and beautiful; loving you in secret, my heart is tangled without limit, like the twisted pattern of a robe rubbed with dye.
- Commentary
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Episode One: "Shinobu no midare"
Long ago, a man, having come of age, went hawking to villages around the capital at Nara.
There he found two sisters, graceful and youthful, and ended up peering at them from between objects. His feelings were stirred by their charm, and he cut the hem of the hunting robe he was wearing—dyed in the shinobu-rubbing pattern—and sent this poem.
The shinobu-rubbing is a garment pattern made by rubbing with the shinobu plant, in which the design becomes twisted and tangled. The poem’s phrase “shinobu no midare” expresses the turmoil of a heart that longs for the sisters in secret, tangled like the pattern of shinobu-rubbing.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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