うらなくも思ひけるかな契りしを
松より浪は越えじものぞと
松より浪は越えじものぞと
- Roma-ji
-
Uranaku mo omoikeru kana chigirishi o
matsu yori nami wa koeji mono zo to - English Translation
-
How without guile I
believed it, that promise we
made to each other—
that the waves would never cross
over the pines and beyond
- Meaning
- How trustingly I believed our promise—that the waves would never cross over the pines.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Akashi
Murasaki no Ue answered his poem with this one, reproaching him plainly through an old poem: had he not sworn he would never change? It is the only poem in this chapter in which she takes him to task directly, and it told on him: his visits to Akashi grew further apart afterward.
"Uranaku" is without suspicion, openly, and carries the word for bay, using his own coastal vocabulary against him. "Chigirishi" is the promise made. "The waves will not cross the pines" draws on the old poem about the pines of Sue no Matsuyama, long a figure for a heart that cannot change. He had made the affair a fisherfolk's diversion; she answers in the same sea vocabulary with the breaking of a vow.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Shioshio to mazu zo nakaruru karisome no
mirume wa ama no susabi naredomo - Next Poem
-
Kono tabi wa tachiwakaru tomo moshio yaku
keburi wa onaji kata ni nabikamu