If she should go forth,
then all would be at an end—
put out the torches;
hear the voices that lament,
saying her years were but a flame.
- Meaning
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If the princess’s bier goes forth, it will be the end for her. Extinguish the torches and listen to the voices that weep, saying that her years were but a brief flame.
- Commentary
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Episode Thirty-Nine: "Put out the torches"
There was an emperor known as the Emperor of Saiin. He had a princess named Takaiko. The princess passed away, and on the night of her funeral, a certain man who lived beside her residence set out to view the rites, riding in the carriage of a woman.
Minamoto no Itaru, famed for his fondness for women, also came to observe the funeral. Wishing to glimpse the woman riding in the carriage—its blinds marking it as a lady’s carriage—he tossed a firefly inside.
This poem was composed by the man riding with the woman, who disliked being revealed by the firefly’s light. Though it seems to rebuke such curiosity at a place of mourning for the princess, it also conveys the man’s wish not to have the woman seen.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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Because of you alone,
I have learned this longing—
in this fleeting world,
do people call such a thing
by the name of love, I wonder?
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Not having learned it,
of the ways of the world,
what could it be—
that I should ask of others
what it is they call love?
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How deeply moving,
the weeping that I now hear—
though the torches die,
that things should vanish and be gone,
that I do not truly know.
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If she should go forth,
who then would find parting hard?
but beyond all past,
today’s grief surpasses all—
how sorrowful this day is.