いつしかも袖うちかけむをとめ子が
世をへてなづる岩のおひさき
世をへてなづる岩のおひさき
- Roma-ji
-
Itsushika mo sode uchikakemu otomego ga
yo o hete nazuru iwa no oisaki - English Translation
-
How soon may I lay
my sleeve across her—the rock
that the heavenly
maiden strokes as ages pass,
and the years still to come here
- Meaning
- How soon may I lay my sleeve over her—the rock the heavenly maiden strokes as the ages pass—and all the years before her.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Miotsukushi
Sending the nurse's party off to Akashi, Genji provided a ceremonial sword and everything else that could be thought of, bound them all to secrecy, and sent trusted men along. His letter to Akashi no Kimi warned her again and again that the child must not be treated lightly. This poem went with it, speaking of a daughter he had not yet seen. She answered.
"Itsushika mo" expresses a wish for something soon. "To lay a sleeve over" is to take a child in one's arms. "Otomego" is a heavenly maiden, from the Buddhist figure in which she descends once in three years and wears a rock away with her robe, that span being one kalpa. The rock is the child, and the conceit prays for long life and flourishing. He uses the form of a celebratory poem for his own daughter, with the prophecy that she will one day be empress standing behind it.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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?
- Stroking her alone, my sleeve has not the breadth for what it must cover; I wait for a shade that would spread wide enough to cover
- Though I am not of the quarter the two who love each other lean toward, I shall be the one to go first, becoming smoke myself