朝霧の晴れ間も待たぬ気色にて
花に心をとめぬとぞ見る
花に心をとめぬとぞ見る
- Roma-ji
-
Asagiri no harema mo matanu keshiki nite
hana ni kokoro o tomenu to zo miru - English Translation
-
Not even waiting
for the morning mist to clear,
you go on your way—
I see that this flower here
has held no part of your heart
- Meaning
- You leave without even waiting for the morning mist to lift, and so I see that the flower held no part of your heart.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Yugao
While visiting the woman at Gojo, Genji also went to his lover in Rokujo. One morning he made to leave while the mist still lay thick, and she felt it as a slight. Amid the attendants seeing him off, one of whom picked a morning glory, she spoke this poem to him. He answered and departed, but her resentment did not lift, and his bond with this proud lady casts a long shadow over the chapters to come.
"Not waiting for the mist to clear" simply states his haste to be gone, and "held no part of your heart" is her reading of that haste. The flower is both a flower in the garden and herself, so the poem accuses him of leaving nothing of himself behind. She reproaches him without ever saying so outright, entrusting it to what lies before her eyes, and in that restraint the bearing of the Rokujo lady shows.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Guessing at a glance, I take it to be that one— the evening flower on which the white dew has laid a light that it did not have
- Only drawing near could one tell if it is that— in the failing dusk what I saw was faint and dim, that flower of evening face
- The name of a man whose heart moves to each new bloom I would rather hide, and yet it is hard to pass this morning glory unplucked
- Taking as our guide the road the lay ascetic walks in his practice, do not break the deeper vow that binds us in the next world