君し来ば手なれの駒に刈り飼はむ
盛り過ぎたる下葉なりとも
盛り過ぎたる下葉なりとも
- Roma-ji
-
Kimi shi koba tenare no koma ni karikawamu
sakari sugitaru shitaba nari tomo - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- If only you would come, I would cut it and feed your accustomed horse—though the lower leaves are well past their prime.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Momiji no Ga
Naishi no Suke of the Minamoto was an elderly officer of the palace, faultless in learning and in birth, but famous for an appetite for love that ill suited her years. Amused by the talk, Genji made advances half in jest. Conscious of her age and yet pleased by his attention, she spoke this poem as an invitation. He answered, and their comic exchanges began. In time To no Chujo learned of the affair.
"Your accustomed horse" is a horse one is used to riding, standing for a man who visits regularly. The "lower leaves" are the leaves near the ground, figuring herself past her prime. She admits her age and invites him all the same, so that self-deprecation and solicitation sit together. The construction is sound and draws on older conceits, showing real cultivation—cultivation put to a comic use, which is exactly how this character is drawn.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- Were I to push through the bamboo grass, some might well find fault with me there— in that shade of the forest where horses are always tame
- There is surely no one who would stand and be wet at this eastern hut, and how tiresomely the rain comes dripping down on it here