別れしに悲しきことは尽きにしを
またぞこの世の憂さはまされる
またぞこの世の憂さはまされる
- Roma-ji
-
Wakareshi ni kanashiki koto wa tsukinishi o
mata zo kono yo no usa wa masareru - English Translation
-
At that first parting
I thought all grief had been used
up and gone from me,
and here again the sorrow
of this world has grown the more
- Meaning
- At that parting I thought grief had been exhausted, and now again the wretchedness of this world has only grown.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suma
Genji answered her poem with this one. Losing his father should have used up all sorrow, he says, and now exile has been added on top of it. There was much on both sides, and their minds were too disordered for any of it to be said. He then waited for the moon to rise and set out for the grave in the northern hills.
"That parting" is the death of his father. "I thought it was used up" says that grief had already reached its limit. "Usa" is wretchedness. Grief thought finished and then increased—the structure states a recognition that there is more suffering past the limit, and puts him on exactly the ground of her "nothing gained by it."
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- The bubble afloat on the river of tears will surely vanish soon, not waiting for the shallows that come after the current
- The ones I once knew are gone, and those who remain grieve—at the world's end I pass my days weeping, with nothing gained by leaving it
- When I think back on that time we came in a train with hollyhock worn, it is hard to bear it now, this sacred fence at Kamo
- From this wretched world I now take my leave, and go, leaving the name that stays behind me in the hands of the god of Tadasu