武蔵鐙さすがにかけて頼むには
とはぬもつらしとふもうるさし
とはぬもつらしとふもうるさし
- Roma-ji
-
Musashi abumi sasuga ni kakete tanomu ni wa
towanu mo tsurashi tou mo urusashi - English Translation
-
Musashi stirrups—
though you hang them in earnest,
and place your trust in me,
not to write is cruel,
to write is vexing too.
- Meaning
- Though you hang your Musashi stirrups in earnest and place your trust in me, not to write is cruel, and to write is vexing too.
- Commentary
-
Episode Thirteen: "Musashi stirrups"
A man in Musashi wrote to a woman in the capital, saying in his letter, "If I speak of it, it is shameful; if I do not speak, it is painful," and on the outside he wrote "Musashi stirrups."
This poem was written and sent in reply by the woman in the capital.
Musashi stirrups were horse gear produced in Musashi Province, on which one places one’s foot. "Sasuga" also refers to a metal fitting used in such gear.
From ancient times through the early Heian period, it seems that when a man went to a distant province, it was common for him to take another woman there. Reading the man’s circumstances in his letter, the woman used words associated with stirrups and pivot-words to express her feelings just as they were.
- Source
- Ise Monogatari
- Other
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- Forget me not, though for a time I seem lost in the clouds, until, like the moon that crosses the sky, we meet again.
- Musashino— do not burn it today; in the young grass my beloved husband hides, and I too lie hidden.
- If I write, you say too much; if I do not, you resent me— Musashi stirrups hanging on either side: is it at such a time that one must die?
- Rather than thus not die of love at all, better to have been a silkworm— with but a jewel-cord’s span of life.