鳥辺山燃えし煙もまがふやと
海人の塩焼く浦見にぞ行く
海人の塩焼く浦見にぞ行く
- Roma-ji
-
Toribeyama moeshi keburi mo magau ya to
ama no shio yaku ura mi ni zo yuku - English Translation
-
Wondering whether
it might resemble the smoke
that burned at Toribe,
I go to see the shore where
the fisherfolk burn their salt
- Meaning
- Wondering if it might be like the smoke that rose at Toribe, I go to look at the shore where the fisherfolk burn their salt.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suma
With his affair with Oborozukiyo discovered and the pressure closing in, Genji resolved to withdraw to Suma of his own accord, so that no blame should fall on the Heir Apparent. Two or three days before leaving he went under cover of dark to the Minister of the Left's house and passed a night among rooms still full of the dead Aoi no Ue. As he was leaving at dawn, a message came from Omiya through Saisho no Kimi, and this poem was murmured in reply. She answered with one of her own.
Toribe is the burial ground where Aoi no Ue was cremated. "The shore where the fisherfolk burn salt" is the coast at Suma, and its smoke is laid over the smoke of the pyre. The journey out of the capital is recast as a journey to seek a dead wife's smoke, so that exile and bereavement meet in one image. As the first poem of the chapter it also opens the theme of salt-burning smoke that runs through it.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Finding the fragrance of the orange dear to it, the cuckoo has come, seeking out and calling on this village of fallen bloom
- At a house gone wild where no one comes to see it, it is the orange bloom alone that has become the eaves' one reason to call
- Will the parting from the one already dead grow further still, unless it be in that cloud-realm where she rose and became the smoke
- Though this body goes wandering away like this, the reflected face in the mirror that does not leave your side will not leave you