友千鳥諸声に鳴く暁は
ひとり寝覚の床も頼もし
ひとり寝覚の床も頼もし
- Roma-ji
-
Tomochidori morogoe ni naku akatsuki wa
hitori nezame no toko mo tanomoshi - English Translation
-
At a dawn like this,
when the plovers with their friends
cry all in one voice,
even a bed where I wake
alone seems something to trust
- Meaning
- At a dawn when the plovers cry together with their fellows, even this bed where I wake alone feels like something to lean on.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suma
Lying awake again toward dawn, he heard plovers calling with a sound that went through him. No one else was up, and he murmured the poem over to himself where he lay. Watching him rise while it was still dark to wash and say his prayers, the men with him found it rare and moving and could hardly bear to leave his side.
"Tomo chidori" are plovers in a flock. "Morogoe" is voices together, several birds crying at once. "A bed where one wakes alone" states his solitude plainly. A solitary man drawing strength from the cries of birds that keep together is the paradox on which it turns, and the poem is among the best known from the winter scenes at Suma.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- As often as the brushwood burns in the huts of the mountain people, so often would I have them come, the folk of home I love
- On which of the roads among the clouds shall I too lose my way and go— and it shames me to think that the moon may be watching me
- With no season to it, I long for the people of the great palace, and now the day has come round when we wore the cherry sprays
- In what spring shall I go and look upon the home I came from once more— the ones I envy are these wild geese that are going back