生ひ立たむありかも知らぬ若草を
おくらす露ぞ消えむそらなき
おくらす露ぞ消えむそらなき
- Roma-ji
-
Oitatamu arika mo shiranu wakakusa o
okurasu tsuyu zo kiemu sora naki - English Translation
-
Not knowing the place
where this young grass will grow up,
the dew that leaves it
behind has no sky at all
in which it could fade away
- Meaning
- Not knowing where this young grass will grow, the dew that must leave it behind has no sky in which to vanish.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Wakamurasaki
Ill with a recurring fever, Genji went to a holy man in the northern hills for healing rites. One evening, feeling somewhat better, he walked out and looked in over a low brushwood fence at a monk's dwelling. Inside were an elderly woman in a nun's habit and a beautiful girl of about ten. The child was in tears because her sparrow had escaped, and stroking her hair the nun, her grandmother, spoke this poem. That glimpse drew Genji powerfully to the girl, and he soon set about learning who she was.
The "young grass" is the small granddaughter, the future Murasaki no Ue, and the "dew" is the nun herself, soon to go before her. Dew is bound to vanish, but to have no sky even to vanish into means she cannot die with a mind at rest. A grandmother's fear at leaving so young a child is held inside one continuous image of grass and dew. Set near the opening of the chapter, this poem also sets the whole tale in motion.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Like the cicada, I have changed and left behind that summer garment, and seeing it returned now my voice cries out all the same
- The one who has passed and the one who parts today go by two separate roads, and where either of them goes I know not, this autumn dusk
- While the young grasses end is not yet to be seen, how can it be that the dew should already make ready to fade and be gone
- Since I looked upon the young leaves of that new grass, the sleeve I lie on here in my traveler's bed has not once been dry of dew