限りとて別るる道の悲しきに
いかまほしきは命なりけり
いかまほしきは命なりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Kagiri tote wakaruru michi no kanashiki ni
ikamahoshiki wa inochi narikeri - English Translation
-
This is now the end—
the parting road is so sad;
the way I would go,
if I could choose, is the road
of life, of living onward
- Meaning
- The road of parting I must take, knowing this is the end, is so full of sorrow—and the road I truly wish to take is the road of staying alive.
- Commentary
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Part One: Kiritsubo
The Kiritsubo Consort, who held the Emperor's love entirely to herself, fell ill under the weight of jealousy and strain around her, and at last had to withdraw to her family home. The Emperor took her hand, unwilling to let her go, but she was already barely breathing, and left this poem in place of words. Having spoken it, she left the palace and died that same night. The Emperor sank into grief, and this parting becomes the point from which the whole of The Tale of Genji begins to move.
"Kagiri tote" means "thinking this is the end," showing that the dying consort knows her life is finishing. In "ikamahoshiki" two senses are laid over each other—"the road I wish to go" and "the life I wish to live"—so that a single word carries her wish to take the road of life rather than the road of death. She neither blames the Emperor nor calls out to him, leaving only her wish to have lived on at his side, a restrained expression that has made this the best known poem of the Kiritsubo chapter.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- Though far we may part, beyond the boundless clouded sky, to distant realms, shall I leave your heart behind within my own? Never.
- As your mother's guard, my heart goes along with you; let that heart alone not be stopped nor held back fast by the barriers on your way.
- On Miyagi moor the wind that binds dew in drops— hearing its sound now, my thoughts go out to the small bush clover at its root there
- Though the bell cricket cries out to the end of voice, the long night wears on unspent, and my falling tears go on falling without end