そのかみを今日はかけじと忍ぶれど
心のうちにものぞ悲しき
心のうちにものぞ悲しき
- Roma-ji
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Sonokami o kyō wa kakeji to shinoburedo
kokoro no uchi ni mono zo kanashiki - English Translation
-
I would not call up
those old days again today,
and hold myself back,
and yet within my own heart
there is a sadness in it
- Meaning
- I try today not to call the old days to mind, and hold myself back—and still, within, there is a sadness.
- Commentary
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Part One: Sakaki
Attending her daughter to the palace, Miyasudokoro thought as she stepped into the palanquin of the days when her late father had cherished her beyond measure. She had married the Heir Apparent at sixteen, lost him at twenty, and at thirty was seeing the palace again. Thinking over all that, she spoke this poem to herself. Afterward the Priestess received the parting comb from the Emperor, and the party set out for Ise.
"Sono kami" is the past, that former time. "Kakeji" is a resolve not to speak of it, not to let the mind touch it. The upper lines state the restraint and the lower lines turn on its failure. Standing in the middle of a brilliant ceremony, holding a feeling she can share with no one, she puts exactly that into the shape of a poem.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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