うきめかる伊勢をの海人を思ひやれ
藻塩垂るてふ須磨の浦にて
藻塩垂るてふ須磨の浦にて
- Roma-ji
-
Ukime karu Ise o no ama o omoiyare
moshio taru chō Suma no ura nite - English Translation
-
Think, from that Suma
shore where they say the sleeves drip
brine, of the woman
of Ise who cuts the weed
and gathers her bitterness
- Meaning
- From that shore of Suma where they say the sleeves drip brine, think of the woman of Ise cutting weed and bitterness together.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suma
In the confusion of that troubled season it had gone unmentioned, but Genji had sent a messenger to Rokujo no Miyasudokoro in Ise as well. She sent someone all that way in return, with a letter of real feeling. The wording and the hand were finer than most and showed deep cultivation. This poem was part of it.
"Ukime" is a seaweed whose name also means bitter experience. "The fisherwoman of the Ise shore" is herself. "Moshio taru" is being wet with brine while burning seaweed for salt, played against being wet with tears, and stands for Genji at Suma. Each addresses the other as a dweller by the sea, and the epistolary pattern of this chapter—binding two distant places in one vocabulary of the shore—holds here as well.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Urabito no shio kumu sode ni kurabe mi yo
namiji hedatsuru yoru no koromo o - Next Poem
-
Iseshima ya shiohi no kata ni asarite mo
iu kai naki wa waga mi narikeri