月影の宿れる袖はせばくとも
とめても見ばやあかぬ光を
とめても見ばやあかぬ光を
- Roma-ji
-
Tsukikage no yadoreru sode wa sebaku tomo
tomete mo mibaya akanu hikari o - English Translation
-
Narrow though it be,
this sleeve where the moonlight has
come to lodge itself,
I would hold and still watch on
a light there is no end to
- Meaning
- Narrow though this sleeve may be, where the moonlight has come to rest, I would keep it and go on gazing at a light I cannot tire of.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suma
Genji called at the Hanachirusato house, paid his respects first to the Reikeiden Consort, and then went in to the sister in the west wing. Under a hazy moon they talked until it was nearly dawn. Hurrying away out of caution, he moved through a scene of the moon setting, and the parting was hard. Seeing the moonlight caught in the deep color of her robe, she spoke this poem, and he answered to comfort her.
"Moonlight" figures Genji himself. "Narrow though the sleeve may be" is a modest way of speaking of her own small share of gifts and fortune. "A light one cannot tire of" is exactly that. Catching the moon in a sleeve is an old conceit, and she uses it to state her wish to keep him with great restraint—her diffidence becomes the very tone of the poem.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Though this body goes wandering away like this, the reflected face in the mirror that does not leave your side will not leave you
- If, even parted, at least the reflected face were to stay behind, then I might look in the glass and take some comfort from it
- The moonlight, going its round, will come at the last to shine clear again— do not gaze on at a sky where it is clouded a while
- Was it sinking down into that river of tears with no shoal to meet, that made the beginning of the channel I drift along