ほのかにも軒端の荻をむすばずは
露のかごとを何にかけまし
露のかごとを何にかけまし
- Roma-ji
-
Honoka ni mo nokiba no ogi o musubazu wa
tsuyu no kagoto o nani ni kakemashi - English Translation
-
Had I never once,
faint as it was, tied a knot
in that eaves-reed there,
on what could I now hang out
this small complaint of the dew
- Meaning
- Had I never, however faintly, tied a knot in that reed at the eaves, on what could I now hang this dew-slight complaint of mine?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Yugao
With letters passing again between him and Utsusemi, Genji also sent word to Nokiba no Ogi, the woman with whom he had once spent a night by mistake. She was already married to a Kurodo Shosho, but he had not forgotten her, and sent this poem. She answered, showing that the thread between them still held, faint as it was. The chapter then turns toward his parting from Utsusemi.
"Nokiba no ogi" is the reed growing at the eaves, and it serves as this lady's name. "Musubu" plays tying a knot in the reeds against binding a vow between man and woman. "The complaint of the dew" is a slight grievance, tied to the image of dew settling on the reeds. The poem uses one night as a pretext for writing, and keeps the whole of it inside a single continuous image of reed and dew—a piece of conspicuous technique.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- I had come to know this cast-off shell of a world is a bitter thing, and still my life hangs upon a few leaves of words from you
- Weeping as I tie with my own hands, on this day, this under-sash cord— in what world am I to see it loosened, opened again
- Even at the wind that comes hinting through the reeds, this low reed beneath is half bound up in the frost and cannot open itself
- While I looked on it as a keepsake to hold me until we should meet, this sleeve of mine has wholly worn away and rotted through