かへりてはかごとやせまし寄せたりし
なごりに袖のひがたかりしを
なごりに袖のひがたかりしを
- Roma-ji
-
Kaerite wa kagoto ya semashi yosetarishi
nagori ni sode no higatakarishi o - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Turning back, shall I be the one to complain? After you came near and went, my own sleeve was slow enough to dry.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Akashi
Genji answered her poem with this one. Something of an old attraction remained, and the unexpected letter brought it back the more; but in this period he was careful to keep clear of such affairs altogether. Even Hanachirusato had only letters from him, and found that harder to bear than silence. With this poem the Akashi chapter closes.
"Kaerite" is turning back—back to the shore at Suma, and also the other way round, from his side. "Kagoto" is a complaint or grievance. "Yosetari shi" returns her own phrase about giving her heart, and carries the coming in of a wave. "Nagori" is the trace left as the water draws back. Using her coastal vocabulary, he turns it about—his was the wet sleeve—and the two chapters end in the same key of repartee as their earlier exchange.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- We had not grown used to being close, with nothing held back between us, and yet the parting itself turns out to be hard to bear
- Grieving a parting from one so newly met is your pretext, and yet is it not toward the one you long for that you would go?