つつむめる名やもり出でむ引きかはし
かくほころぶる中の衣に
かくほころぶる中の衣に
- Roma-ji
-
Tsutsumumeru na ya moriidemu hikikawashi
kaku hokoroburu naka no koromo ni - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- The name you keep wrapped away may yet leak out—through this middle robe of ours, torn open in the pulling.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Momiji no Ga
Late in the night To no Chujo forced his way in on Genji and the lady, feigning to draw a sword. Suspecting an elderly rival, Genji hid behind a screen, then recognized his friend and pinched hard at the arm holding the blade. To no Chujo could not keep from laughing, and once each had acknowledged the other they grappled over a robe until the seam tore open. With the torn garment before them, To no Chujo spoke this poem. Genji answered at once, and the two went off together, both in disarray.
"Tsutsumu" plays wrapping something in cloth against keeping a secret. "Naka no koromo" is the robe worn between the under- and outer garments, and "naka" sounds the bond between the two men. "Hokorobu," a seam coming apart, works with "wrap" and "robe" as an associated word. Out of nothing but the torn garment in front of him he builds the suggestion that a secret will get out—improvised in the middle of a scuffle, and yet exactly made.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- Knowing all the while that it hides nothing at all, you have come here in this thin summer robe, and I read that thinness as your heart
- Bitter as I am, there is no use in saying— after waves that rose one upon another, then drew away and left nothing