かざしける心ぞあだにおもほゆる
八十氏人になべて逢ふ日を
八十氏人になべて逢ふ日を
- Roma-ji
-
Kazashikeru kokoro zo ada ni omooyuru
yasoujibito ni nabete au hi o - English Translation
-
That heart of yours which
wore the leaf seems to me all
faithlessness, given
that on this day you would meet
with the whole crowd, one and all
- Meaning
- It is the heart that wore the leaf that strikes me as idle, on a day when the whole crowd meets whoever comes along.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Aoi
Genji answered her curtly with this poem. Today is only the festival, when everyone is out and everyone meets; it is her heart, he says, that is idle for reading anything more into it. She took this hard and sent one more. With Murasaki no Ue beside him, Genji could neither raise the blinds nor answer at any ease.
"The heart that wore the leaf" takes up her own word and carries the aoi imagery forward. "Ada" is idle, unreliable. "Yaso ujibito" means people of many clans, that is, a crowd, and "meeting one and all" cancels the pun she had made. He takes the hope she had folded into "a day of meeting" and shifts it to "a day of meeting anyone at all"—a hard way to refuse.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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Hakanashi ya hito no kazaseru aoi yue
kami no yurushi no kyō o machikeru - Next Poem
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Kuyashiku mo kazashikeru kana na nomi shite
hitodanome naru kusaba bakari o