よそへつつ見るに心は慰まで
露けさまさる撫子の花
露けさまさる撫子の花
- Roma-ji
-
Yosoetsutsu miru ni kokoro wa nagusamade
tsuyukesa masaru nadeshiko no hana - English Translation
-
Setting it beside
the one I long for, I look,
and my heart is not
eased at all—the dew only
gathers on the pink the more
- Meaning
- I look at it and set it beside the one I long for, and my heart is not eased; the dew only lies heavier on the pink.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Momiji no Ga
In the fourth month the young prince was brought to the palace. The Emperor, delighted that the child's face was the image of Genji's, called Genji in and looked at the two of them together. At his innocent words both Genji and Fujitsubo were inwardly in a cold sweat. Afterward Genji likened the child to a pink and sent her this poem. Unable to leave it alone, she wrote a short reply.
"Setting it beside" means comparing, laying the child over the flower and over Fujitsubo herself. The pink has long been used for a small child, and the sound of the word carries the sense of stroking and cherishing. "Dewiness" is being close to tears, and the poem turns on a reversal: the flower he looked at for comfort only draws more tears. The pain of a man who cannot claim to be a father is concentrated into the single act of looking at a flower.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- In what way was it that a bond was tied between us in lives before, that in this world we should have such a barrier between
- You grieve having seen, and she who has not seen him— how must she grieve too? Is this, then, the very dark they say a parent wanders
- Thinking of the child as kin to that dew which wets the sleeve you speak of, I find the yamato pink is not one I can put off
- If you would but come, I would cut and feed it to your familiar horse, even though the under-leaf is past the height of its prime