立ちぬるる人しもあらじ東屋に
うたてもかかる雨そそきかな
うたてもかかる雨そそきかな
- Roma-ji
-
Tachinururu hito shi mo araji azumaya ni
utate mo kakaru amasosoki kana - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Surely no one would stop and get wet at this eastern hut—and yet how wretchedly the rain keeps dripping down on it.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Momiji no Ga
Unable to give up her feeling for Genji, the lady let fall reproachful words whenever she could. One day he stopped where she was playing her lute near the Unmeiden, and they spoke together. It was then that she lamented in this poem. Genji found so open an appeal hard to bear, and thought it no business of his alone to listen to an old woman's complaints. That night, To no Chujo, guessing what was afoot, forced his way in on them.
The "eastern hut" is a plain house roofed down on all four sides, and the poem draws on the words of the saibara song of that name. Since that song is a woman's, waiting for a man to come, she lays her own visitorless state over it. "Ame sosoki" is the dripping from the eaves, with tears folded in. She quotes older song accurately, and yet what she says is an open plea unbecoming to her years—and the gap between the two is where the comedy of the scene lies.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- Another man's wife— ah, what a troublesome thing; at this eastern hut, at its eaves, I think I will not grow too familiar here
- The name you wrap up and keep hidden may yet leak out and be let known— through this middle robe of ours that we tore open pulling