里わかぬかげをば見れどゆく月の
いるさの山を誰れか尋ぬる
いるさの山を誰れか尋ぬる
- Roma-ji
-
Sato wakanu kage o ba miredo yuku tsuki no
Irusa no yama o tare ka tazunuru - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- We see the light that falls on every village without distinction—but who goes looking for Irusa, the hill the moon slips behind?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suetsumuhana
Genji answered To no Chujo's poem on the spot with this one. He turns the question aside lightly, saying he has no intention of naming his destination, and asks in return who his friend is to be prying. Afterward the two went on writing to the Hitachi princess, each trying to get ahead of the other. No answer came, and her silence only sharpened their interest.
"The light that makes no distinction among villages" is moonlight falling on all alike, standing for a man who behaves the same toward everyone. "Irusa" is the name of a hill where the moon sets, and it plays on "to go in," taking up To no Chujo's "where you go in to." Carrying the moon imagery forward while turning the sense toward "do not pry," it is a neatly finished piece of repartee.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- 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
- To strike the bell and so close the matter would be more than I can do, and yet an answer comes hard— which, to me, makes little sense