見てもまた逢ふ夜まれなる夢のうちに
やがて紛るる我が身ともがな
やがて紛るる我が身ともがな
- Roma-ji
-
Mite mo mata au yo mare naru yume no uchi ni
yagate magiruru waga mi tomogana - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Even now that we have met, such nights come so rarely—let this body of mine simply lose itself here inside the dream.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Wakamurasaki
Fujitsubo had withdrawn from the palace because of illness, and with the help of Omyobu, Genji at last acted on a longing he had carried for years. She was his father's consort and his own stepmother; the meeting could never be permitted. As the short night was ending, he spoke this poem. She answered with one of her own; afterward she conceived from that night, and the heavy secret that runs through the whole tale came into being.
The dream stands for a meeting that cannot be believed real, and it is the word that binds the two poems of this exchange. "Lose itself once for all" is a wish simply to vanish, holding both guilt and the despair of never meeting again. That he says nothing of joy and turns straight to grief at not meeting again shows exactly how disordered this bond is.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- Will people pass on this as a tale of the world, though I make of my wretched life beyond compare a dream from which none awakes
- Ever since I heard that one cry of the young crane, the boat that labors among the reeds cannot bear how hard the going has grown