うち払ふ袖も露けき常夏に
あらし吹きそふ秋も来にけり
あらし吹きそふ秋も来にけり
- Roma-ji
-
Uchiharau sode mo tsuyukeki tokonatsu ni
arashi fukisou aki mo kinikeri - English Translation
-
On the summer pink,
where the sleeve that brushes dust
is wet with its dew,
autumn has come now as well,
adding the storm wind to it
- Meaning
- On this summer pink, where even the sleeve that brushes off the dust is wet with dew, autumn has come and brought the storm wind with it.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Hahakigi
To his reply the woman answered with this poem. She had already met with threats from the principal wife's household, and speaks of having nowhere to turn; yet, as To no Chujo tells it, she would show tears and then put them aside, never voicing reproach outright. After this poem she took the little girl and disappeared, and his story ends with them still unaccounted for.
"Summer pink" takes up the word from his poem and now means herself, carrying the exchange on unbroken. "Tsuyukeki" is to be wet with tears; the storm stands for the pressure from the wife's household; and "aki," autumn, holds "aki," to tire of someone, laying her fear of his changing heart beneath the season. She piles up these double meanings and still never raises her voice, setting out her situation as no more than a turn of the season, and in that her character comes through clearly.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Though the woven fence of this poor hill dwelling breaks, still from time to time let your pity fall on us as dew falls upon the pink
- Among mingled blooms I cannot tell which color stands above the rest, and yet there is nothing here that comes near the summer pink
- At this dusk, when signs the spider gives are so clear, to be told to wait and let the daylight go by makes no sense that I can see
- If we were a pair who let no night come between the times that we meet, why would the daylight hours then be anything to shrink from