暁の別れはいつも露けきを
こは世に知らぬ秋の空かな
こは世に知らぬ秋の空かな
- Roma-ji
-
Akatsuki no wakare wa itsu mo tsuyukeki o
ko wa yo ni shiranu aki no sora kana - English Translation
-
A parting at dawn
is always a thing of dew,
but this—here is one
such as the world has not known,
and such an autumn sky too
- Meaning
- A parting at daybreak is always a thing of dew; but this is an autumn sky such as the world has never known.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Sakaki
Talking through the night, they watched the sky slowly lighten. They had said everything there was to say, and still what stood between them did not lift. Unable to go, holding her hand, Genji spoke this poem. She answered, and he went home through the full daylight, wet with dew. That night at the Shrine in the Fields was the last time the two of them met.
"A parting at dawn" is the leave-taking of lovers at daybreak, always understood to come with tears. "Tsuyukeshi," close to tears, doubles with the dew of the hour. "Such as the world has not known" sets this one occasion apart while keeping to the conventional form. One word of excess inside a set pattern is enough to say that this is a parting after which there will be no meeting.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- At this sacred fence there is no cedar standing to mark out the place— what did you take it for, then, this branch of sakaki here
- Because I thought this the place where the maidens are, drawn by the fragrance of the sakaki leaves, I sought it out and broke it off
- Even in itself a parting in autumn is a sad enough thing— do not add your crying to it, pine crickets of the field
- If the land's own gods, who keep the eight islands safe, have hearts in them too, let them judge between us in a parting we have not willed