都出でし春のなげきにおとらめや
年ふる浦をわかれぬる秋
年ふる浦をわかれぬる秋
- Roma-ji
-
Miyako ideshi haru no nageki ni otorame ya
toshi furu ura o wakarenuru aki - English Translation
-
Could it fall short of
the grief of that spring when I
went out from the town—
this autumn in which I part
from a shore grown old with years
- Meaning
- Could it fall short of the grief of that spring when I left the capital—this autumn, parting from a shore grown old with years?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Akashi
Genji answered the novice's poem with this one, saying first that there were ties he could not forget and that his real intent would be understood in time, and that what he found hard was leaving this house; then he wiped his eyes. The old man lost his composure entirely and swayed whether standing or sitting. Afterward the mother and the nurse added their grief to his, and he fell into the garden stream and hurt his back.
"The spring I left the capital" is the departure for Suma. "The shore grown old with years" plays the long years lived by this bay against the age of the novice himself. "The autumn of parting" is the present. Spring's going down and autumn's return are set as a pair, closing the whole exile of the two chapters within one poem, and answering the corresponding poem in the Suma chapter.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- It is right that we exchange these robes, each for each, as keepsakes—the robes worn between, which stand between us the count of all the days
- Weary of the world, I have become one soaked through with brine these many years on this shore—and even so I cannot leave this bank
- Sunk in the great sea and fallen into grief here, like the leech-child who could not stand upon his legs, I have let the years go by
- Since there comes a time of meeting again, as they met going around the shrine pillar—do not keep the grudge of that parting spring