はかりなき千尋の底の海松ぶさの
生ひゆくすゑは我のみぞ見む
生ひゆくすゑは我のみぞ見む
- Roma-ji
-
Hakari naki chihiro no soko no mirubusa no
oiyuku sue wa ware nomi zo mimu - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Down in a bed a thousand fathoms deep the fronds of seaweed grow, and I alone shall see how far they come to grow.
- Commentary
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Part One: Aoi
On the day of the Kamo festival, Genji made ready to go and watch with Murasaki no Ue from the Nijo residence. Before they set out he said he would trim her long hair himself, took up the scissors, and when he had finished pronounced the blessing of "a thousand fathoms." It was then that he spoke this poem. She wrote a reply, and he admired both the skill and the youth in her hand. From this exchange their relation begins to shift from guardian and ward toward husband and wife.
"A thousand fathoms" is the blessing spoken at a hair-trimming, wishing long life and prosperity. "Miru-busa" are fronds of seaweed, figuring hair that grows long. "Where they grow to" is the future ahead of her, and the poem declares that he alone will see it. Cast as a blessing, it states possession plainly, and it forecasts what is to come.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- 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
- Only a shadow on the Mitarashi stream, and he passes by— how wretched my own lot is I come to know all the more
- How am I to know it is a thousand fathoms, when the tide that comes and goes is so changeable and never at rest at all
- How fleeting it is— for the hollyhock one wears I have waited here for this day on which the god gives us all his leave to meet