あさか山浅くも人を思はぬに
など山の井のかけ離るらむ
など山の井のかけ離るらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Asakayama asaku mo hito o omowanu ni
nado yama no i no kakehanaruramu - English Translation
-
Not shallowly, as
the name of Mount Asaka
says, do I love you—
then why does the mountain well
keep its reflection so far
- Meaning
- I do not think of you shallowly, whatever Mount Asaka's name may say—so why does the mountain well keep its reflection so far from me?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Wakamurasaki
With the nun's answers giving him nothing, Genji tucked a small folded note into his letter and sent a poem to the girl herself, telling a child that his feeling was not shallow. She was too young to write a reply, and her nurse, Shonagon, wrote one in her place. His suit went on, but came to nothing while the nun lived.
"Mount Asaka" is a poetic place-name of the north, and its name leads into "shallow." The "mountain well" is a shallow spring in the hills, said to reflect a face poorly for that reason, and used for distance between people. Building "shallow" and "kept apart" out of a place-name and its associated words follows older poetic practice, and though he knows how young she is, he does not relax the form of a proper love letter.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Even having met, nights of meeting come so rare— here inside this dream I would that this body here might lose itself once for all