月のすむ雲居をかけて慕ふとも
この世の闇になほや惑はむ
この世の闇になほや惑はむ
- Roma-ji
-
Tsuki no sumu kumoi o kakete shitau tomo
kono yo no yami ni nao ya madowamu - English Translation
-
Though I set my heart
on the cloud-dwelling where the
moon lives, and follow,
shall I not still go straying
in the darkness of this world
- Meaning
- Though I set my heart on the cloudy height where the moon shines clear and follow you there, shall I not still wander in this world's darkness?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Sakaki
Past the tenth of the twelfth month, on the closing day of the lectures she had sponsored, Fujitsubo declared before the Buddha that she would leave the world, to the astonishment of everyone present. The Bishop of Yokawa cut her hair, and the whole household was loud with weeping. When people had quieted, Genji came before her and, holding back his grief, sent in this poem through Omyobu. She answered, and he withdrew with a heavy heart.
"The cloud-dwelling where the moon shines clear" figures the state she has entered by taking vows. "Setting the heart on and following" is longing after. "The darkness of this world" is life bound by desire, resting on the Buddhist term for ignorance. The poem is built on the same high-and-low contrast as the enthronement scene that closed the Aoi chapter, repeated here at a taking of vows: she rises, and he is left in the dark.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- This day of parting has come round to us again, but the one I knew— when may I count on the time when I shall go and meet her
- To go on living is a wretched thing, and yet, the year coming round, today I feel as though I had met that world once again
- In the general wretchedness of things I turn away from the world, and yet when shall I be done with turning my back on it
- The moment I see it as the dwelling of one who gathers sea-grass, my sleeves begin dripping brine here at the pine-clad island