さえわたる池の鏡のさやけきに
見なれし影を見ぬぞ悲しき
見なれし影を見ぬぞ悲しき
- Roma-ji
-
Saewataru ike no kagami no sayakeki ni
minareshi kage o minu zo kanashiki - English Translation
-
In the clear surface
of this pond, a mirror froze
over and cloudless,
not to see the face that I
used to see is a sad thing
- Meaning
- The pond has frozen to a clear bright mirror, and it is sad that the face I used to see is not in it.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Sakaki
Genji answered Prince Hyobu's poem with this, speaking as it came to him. The pond in the garden had frozen over without a gap. The text calls the poem rather too youthful. Omyobu then spoke a poem of her own, and Fujitsubo's removal to Sanjo, though the forms were as usual, was a bleak business.
"Saewataru" is to freeze hard all over. "The mirror of the pond" likens the ice to a looking-glass, and since a mirror shows a face it leads into "kage," the reflected image—here the late Emperor. Loss is stated by a clear mirror with nothing to reflect: a plain enough conception, and it is worth noting that the text itself judges it too direct a way of carrying grief.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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Kage hiromi tanomishi matsu ya karenikemu
shitaba chiriyuku toshi no kure kana - Next Poem
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Toshi kurete iwai no mizu mo kōritoji
mishi hitokage no ase mo yuku kana