たづねてもわれこそとはめ道もなく
深きよもぎのもとのこころを
深きよもぎのもとのこころを
- Roma-ji
-
Tazunete mo ware koso towame michi mo naku
fukaki yomogi no moto no kokoro o - English Translation
-
Seek it out I shall—
I of all men will go in
and ask after it:
the heart of old at the root
of mugwort too deep for paths
- Meaning
- I shall seek it out; I of all men will go in and ask after it—the unchanged heart at the root of mugwort grown too deep for any path.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Yomogiu
Hearing Koremitsu's report, Genji wondered how she had endured among such weeds and recognized his own coldness in never having come. Still he hesitated to go in at once; and when he thought of sending some graceful message he remembered how slow she had been to answer before, and would not keep a messenger waiting. Koremitsu said the mugwort was too wet with dew to walk through, and Genji spoke this poem almost to himself. Koremitsu then beat the dew from the grass with his riding whip and led him in.
"I shall seek it out, I will go and ask" has the ring of a man steeling himself. "Mugwort too deep for a path" gives the chapter its name. "Moto" is the root of the plant and also the heart as it was before. The ruined garden outside becomes the very thing that has kept an unchanged heart within it, and the theme of the whole chapter is gathered into one poem.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Though the jewelled vine be severed, it will not end; by the gods who guard the offerings on the road I go, I will swear it so
- My sleeve has no time to dry, longing as it does for the one who's gone, and now the drops from these eaves in ruin are added too
- The wisteria waves seemed hard to pass on by— it was the pine, and the waiting, that were the sign this house had been keeping here
- These years I waited and no sign came of it—my house you pass beside only because the flowers gave you occasion to come