いはけなき鶴の一声聞きしより
葦間になづむ舟ぞえならぬ
葦間になづむ舟ぞえならぬ
- Roma-ji
-
Iwakenaki tazu no hitokoe kikishi yori
ashima ni nazumu fune zo e naranu - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Ever since I heard that one cry of the young crane, I have been like a boat caught among the reeds, unable to go on and unable to bear it.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Wakamurasaki
Late in autumn, hearing that the nun had come down to the capital and lay ill in a run-down house near Rokujo Kyogoku, Genji went to call on her in secret. His wish to take the girl had not changed, and he meant to press it again. This poem was spoken to the nun then. Her illness was far advanced; she could not give him any real answer, and soon afterward she died.
"The young crane" figures the girl, the crane being also a symbol of long life, so that a wish for her future is folded in. "A boat laboring among the reeds" is an old figure for being unable to make headway. Crane, reeds, and boat hold the poem together in a single waterside scene, so that the awkward matter of courting a child is kept inside a quiet landscape.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- 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
- 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
- When shall I pluck it with my own hand and behold this young field grass here that runs down in its roots to the purple gromwell's own root
- At Ashiwaka bay the seaweed is hard to find and hard to see, am I a wave that stands here and turns back with nothing gained