このたびは立ちわかるとも藻塩やく
けぶりは同じかたになびかむ
けぶりは同じかたになびかむ
- Roma-ji
-
Kono tabi wa tachiwakaru tomo moshio yaku
keburi wa onaji kata ni nabikamu - English Translation
-
Though on this journey
we are parting and I go,
the smoke that rises
from the burning of seaweed
will drift toward the same place
- Meaning
- Though this journey parts us, the smoke of the burning seaweed will drift the same way—and so will we.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Akashi
Two days before his return to the capital, Genji came to her earlier in the evening than usual. Seeing clearly for the first time how fine and noble her face was, he found he could hardly leave her, and promised to send for her in the city. The waves sounded on the autumn wind and the salt-smoke drifted thinly as he spoke this poem. She answered.
"Kono tabi" plays this occasion against a journey. "Tachiwakaru" is to part and set out, with "tachi" also belonging to the smoke. "Moshio yaku" is burning seaweed for salt, the image running through both this chapter and Suma. "Will drift the same way" says that parted, their hearts still incline together. The smoke in front of them is taken straight into the figure, so that the scene of parting becomes the vow itself.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- Wet through with brine, I find myself weeping first of all—though the seaweed glimpsed in passing was no more than a fisher's idle sport
- How without guile I believed it, that promise we made to each other— that the waves would never cross over the pines and beyond
- Though thoughts burn in me like the weed the fisherfolk rake up and set fire, now there is no shell of worth and I will not even blame
- That single word you seem to have left me to trust, lightly though you meant— shall I hang it on that sound without end and weep for you?