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

Other

Ubasoku ga okonau michi o shirube nite komu yo mo fukaki chigiri tagau na

Ubasoku ga okonau michi o shirube nite
komu yo mo fukaki chigiri tagau na