光ありと見し夕顔のうは露は
たそかれ時のそら目なりけり
たそかれ時のそら目なりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Hikari ari to mishi yūgao no uwatsuyu wa
tasokaredoki no sorame narikeri - English Translation
-
That upper dew laid
on the evening face flower,
which I saw as light—
it was nothing but a trick
my eyes played at dusk that day
- Meaning
- The dew on the evening face flower that I took for light was only a trick of my eyes in the dusk.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Yugao
To Genji's poem, spoken with his face uncovered, she answered with this one. She takes back her own first poem on the fan, with its "light added by the white dew," and turns it aside lightly: you were not, after all, what I supposed. He read her temper in the answer. But late that night, just after he dreamed of a woman appearing at his pillow, she was seized with pain and died.
"Uwa tsuyu" is the dew lying on the surface of a flower, taking up the "white dew" of her first poem. "Sorame" means a trick of sight, and she gives the dimness of dusk as her reason. The form is modesty—unsaying a poem that praised too highly—yet the phrase about mistaking the light rings heavily against what comes next. The exchange also pairs deliberately with the one that opened the chapter.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Yūtsuyu ni himo toku hana wa tamaboko no
tayori ni mieshi enishi ni koso arikere - Next Poem
-
Mishi hito no keburi o kumo to nagamureba
yūbe no sora mo mutsumashiki kana