もろともに大内山は出でつれど
入る方見せぬいさよひの月
入る方見せぬいさよひの月
- Roma-ji
-
Morotomo ni Ōuchiyama wa idetsuredo
iru kata misenu isayoi no tsuki - English Translation
-
Together we left
the great palace mountain, yet
you will not show me
where you go in to—you are
the moon of the sixteenth night
- Meaning
- We came out from the palace together, and still you will not show me where you go in—you, moon of the sixteenth night.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suetsumuhana
Genji's grief for Yugao had not lifted, and he was looking for a woman he could be easy with. From Taifu no Myobu, his nurse's daughter, he heard of a daughter of the late Prince Hitachi who lived on in a ruined house, playing her koto, and out of curiosity he went there in secret. But To no Chujo, suspicious of his movements, had followed him. Revealing himself, To no Chujo spoke this poem as a reproach. Genji answered, the two of them laughed, and afterward they wrote to the lady almost in competition.
"Ouchiyama" means the palace, and by way of the mountain in the name it leads into "going in" and "the moon." The moon of the sixteenth night is one that hesitates before rising, and it stands for Genji, who will not say where he is going. The plain fact—that they left together and one of them disappeared—is laid directly onto the movement of the moon. It is banter between close friends, and yet the form of the poem is kept exactly.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- I have not yet seen the root, and still I hold dear this grass of the tie on Musashi plain, where I weary of parting the dew
- Not knowing the cause that you would lay it upon, I cannot be sure— just what sort of grass is it that I am the tie of here
- The light that falls on every village alike we see, but who is it that goes seeking Irusa, the hill where the moon goes in
- How many times now have I given way before your unbroken hush, trusting that you have not said the words: do not speak to me