たづかなき雲居にひとり音をぞ鳴く
翼並べし友を恋ひつつ
翼並べし友を恋ひつつ
- Roma-ji
-
Tazuka naki kumoi ni hitori ne o zo naku
tsubasa narabeshi tomo o koitsutsu - English Translation
-
In a cloud-realm with
nothing to take hold of, I
cry out here alone,
longing all the while for the
friend whose wing lay beside mine
- Meaning
- In a cloud-realm with nothing to hold to, I cry out alone, longing for the friend whose wing once lay beside my own.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Suma
The Consultant answered Genji's poem with this one, adding that having been allowed such closeness he now found much to regret. After he had gone, without even the comfort of a quiet parting, Genji spent the day sunk deeper in thought than before. The narrative moves on to the purification of the third month and the storm that follows.
"Tazukanaki" means having nothing to rely on and sounds the word for crane within it. "Kumoi" carries forward the imagery of Genji's poem and also means the court. "The friend whose wing lay beside mine" figures their long companionship. Where Genji appealed to the cranes to witness his innocence, the Consultant speaks from the crane's own side about loneliness, so that the same bird serves both men from opposite vantages.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Not having had my fill, I part from this dwelling of the geese and go— shall I lose my way upon the road to the flowered town
- You cranes that fly and cross up there so near the clouds, look down from the sky: I am a man as free of cloud as a day in springtime
- Come drifting out to a plain of open sea I had never known, is my sorrow of one kind here, and only of one kind now
- The eight hundred and ten thousand gods must surely feel for me in this, since there is no crime of mine that anyone can point to