嵐吹く尾の上の桜散らぬ間を
心とめけるほどのはかなさ
心とめけるほどのはかなさ
- Roma-ji
-
Arashi fuku onoe no sakura chiranu ma o
kokoro tomekeru hodo no hakanasa - English Translation
-
Only while they hold,
the cherries on that ridge where
the storm wind is up,
do you keep your heart with them—
and how frail a thing that is
- Meaning
- Your heart stays with those ridge-top cherries only while the storm has not yet scattered them—and how frail a love that is.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Wakamurasaki
The nun answered Genji's poem with this one. A love that holds only while the blossom is at its height, she says, cannot be relied on, and she states plainly that she does not accept him as the man to whom her small granddaughter's future should be entrusted. Genji found her hard going, but kept writing, and in time began sending poems to the girl herself.
"One no ue" is the top of a ridge, carrying the mountain-cherry image forward. "The storm wind" is what scatters blossom, used with the changeableness of the world and of human hearts folded in. "Keeping your heart with them only while they hold" says she takes his ardor for a passing thing. Taking up his words and returning them as criticism rather than compliment is exactly the position she holds throughout.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- Is it truly so, that where the flower stands you find it hard to leave? I shall watch the look of that sky where the mist is rising
- That face does not leave this body of mine at all— the mountain cherry, though with all the heart I had I left my heart there with it
- Not shallowly, as the name of Mount Asaka says, do I love you— then why does the mountain well keep its reflection so far
- That mountain well which, once drawn from, is said to leave regret behind it— while it stays as shallow, should one be shown a face in it