降りにける頭の雪を見る人も
劣らず濡らす朝の袖かな
劣らず濡らす朝の袖かな
- Roma-ji
-
Furinikeru kashira no yuki o miru hito mo
otorazu nurasu asa no sode kana - English Translation
-
The one who looks on
that snow fallen on a head
grown old with the years
wets, no less than he does, his
own sleeve on this morning here
- Meaning
- The one who looks at that snow settled on an aged head wets his own sleeve this morning no less than the old man does.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suetsumuhana
As Genji was leaving, he saw an old gatekeeper standing near the gate, shivering in the cold. The poor clothing, the white head under its covering of snow—the sight of how life was lived in that ruined house went through him. He spoke this poem then. Afterward he began sending clothing and food and generally providing for the household.
"Snow on the head" means both white hair and the snow actually lying there. Likening age to snow is an old poetic conceit, and the poem works from it. "The one who looks wets his sleeve no less" says his own sleeve is as wet as the old man's, tears for that white head running together with the damp of a thawing morning. Disappointed in her looks and yet plainly moved by the poverty of her life, Genji shows both his sides in this one poem.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Think of this village waiting for the moon on a night that will not clear, even if you do not gaze with the same heart as we do
- The icicles hung at the eaves where morning sun strikes have come untied, and why then should the ice there stay bound and hold itself closed
- That Chinese robe—and since your heart is hard to me, my sleeve goes on so, doing nothing else at all but growing wet and wetter
- It is not a hue that draws the heart to itself, so why should it be that I have let my own sleeve touch this last-picked safflower