紅のひと花衣うすくとも
ひたすら朽す名をし立てずは
ひたすら朽す名をし立てずは
- Roma-ji
-
Kurenai no hitohanagoromo usuku tomo
hitasura kutasu na o shi tatezu wa - English Translation
-
Though the crimson of
this one flower-dyed garment
is thin in color,
let no name be raised that would
wholly rot her name away
- Meaning
- Thin though the crimson of this once-dyed robe may be, let no talk arise that would rot her name away entirely.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suetsumuhana
Having said what he did, Genji realized at once that he had gone too far, and went on to speak this poem half to himself. Thinking of her circumstances, he came back to a kind of care for her: it would be hard on her if his abandoning her set talk going. Watching, Myobu understood his consideration and still grieved privately on the lady's behalf.
"A once-dyed crimson robe" is a garment given a single dipping, and its thinness of color stands for how slight the bond between them is. "Kutasu" is to ruin a reputation, and "to raise a name" is for talk to start. Setting "thin though it may be" against "rot away entirely" ties the shallowness of the tie to a wish to protect at least her good name. It catches Genji's difficult position: he makes her a figure of fun and still cannot leave her.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- On these sleeves that lie between us through the nights when we do not meet, are you laying still more, and do you mean me to look again
- That crimson flower is one I find, for no cause I can name, tiresome— though the plum's upstanding branch is a thing that draws my heart