優婆塞が行ふ道をしるべにて
来む世も深き契り違ふな
来む世も深き契り違ふな
- Roma-ji
-
Ubasoku ga okonau michi o shirube nite
komu yo mo fukaki chigiri tagau na - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Let the road that the lay ascetic walks in his devotions be our guide, and do not break the deep vow that binds us in the life to come.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Yugao
Genji went on visiting the woman at Gojo, drawn more and more to her yielding, unassuming nature. One night the voice of a lay ascetic at his devotions came from a house nearby. Listening to it sound among those poor dwellings, Genji thought of how brief a life is, and spoke this poem to her. She answered, but not in the way he had hoped.
The "ubasoku" is a man who follows the Buddhist path without taking vows, and Genji makes the sound of his devotions a warrant for a bond in the world to come. "The deep vow of the life to come" pledges a tie that runs past this life into the next. Taking the ordinary noises of the town as material for a poem is something new, and the scene it holds—a nobleman visiting a common house with his identity hidden—belongs to this chapter alone.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Saku hana ni utsuru chō na wa tsutsumedomo
orade sugiuki kesa no asagao - Next Poem
-
Saki no yo no chigiri shiraruru mi no usa ni
yukusue kanete tanomigatasa yo