心いる方ならませば弓張の
月なき空に迷はましやは
月なき空に迷はましやは
- Roma-ji
-
Kokoro iru kata naramaseba yumihari no
tsuki naki sora ni mayowamashi ya wa - English Translation
-
If your heart were set
and truly aimed toward one place,
would you wander so
under a sky with no moon,
no drawn bow of a moon there
- Meaning
- If your heart were truly set on one person, would you be wandering under a sky with no drawn bow of a moon in it?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Hana no En
This came back from behind the blinds in answer to Genji's poem. Hearing the voice, he was certain it was the woman of that night, and quietly took her hand. She was the sixth daughter of the Minister of the Right, Oborozukiyo, already promised to the Heir Apparent. From this meeting their affair continued, and in time it would be the cause of Genji's withdrawal to Suma. The chapter closes on this poem.
"Kokoro iru," to set one's heart on someone, plays on the verb for shooting a bow, taking up his catalpa bow and Irusa. "Yumihari no tsuki" is the half-moon shaped like a drawn bow, so the bow imagery continues. Her retort—that a man truly in earnest would not be wandering—is pleased at being found and at the same time a test of how much he means it. Two people who parted without names recognize each other using nothing but the words for a bow and a moon, and that is a fitting close for this chapter.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- If the flowers here at my house were of a hue like any other, why should I go on waiting for you to come as I do
- Here on Irusa, the hill where the catalpa bow's arrow goes in, I wander, to see whether that faint moon shows itself yet
- Only a shadow on the Mitarashi stream, and he passes by— how wretched my own lot is I come to know all the more
- Down in that deep bed a thousand fathoms far down the seaweed's fronds grow— and where they grow to at last I alone shall be to see