嘆きつつあかしのうらに朝ぎりの
たつやと人を思ひやるかな
たつやと人を思ひやるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Nagekitsutsu Akashi no ura ni asagiri no
tatsu ya to hito o omoiyaru kana - English Translation
-
Does the morning mist
rise up on Akashi bay,
where you pass the night
through in your grieving? So my
thoughts go out to you from here
- Meaning
- Does the morning mist rise over Akashi bay, where you pass your nights in grief? So my thoughts go out to you.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Akashi
Genji sent a letter to Akashi no Kimi by the people who had escorted him to the capital and were now going back. He kept it out of Murasaki no Ue's sight and wrote it with care. This poem went with it, following a question about how she was passing the nights when the waves came in. A letter from the Gosechi dancer arrived immediately afterward.
"Nageki tsutsu" is grieving as one goes on. "Akashi" is passing a night through to morning and also the place-name, the pun used again and again in this chapter. "Asagiri" is the mist of morning, drawing on the old idea, found as far back as the Man'yoshu, that sighs raise mist. The name of the place she is in is used as the word for how she spends her nights, so that one word joins two people far apart.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- I would like to show you the sleeve of the boatman who gave her heart at the shore of Suma, and let it rot away since with tears
- Turning back, shall I lay some complaint at your door? After you drew near and were gone, the sleeve of mine was slow indeed to grow dry