山がつの垣ほに生ひしなでしこの
もとの根ざしをたれかたづねん
もとの根ざしをたれかたづねん
- Roma-ji
-
Yamagatsu no kakiho ni oishi nadeshiko no
moto no nezashi o tare ka tazunen - English Translation
-
The pink that once grew
by a rough hedge in the hills—
who would ever come
seeking out the place where its
root first fastened in the ground?
- Meaning
- As for the pink that grew by some rough hedge in the hills—who would ever come looking for the place where its root first held?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Tokonatsu
This is her answer. She wept, and spoke as though it were nothing at all; and in that she seemed to him very young and very dear. Genji murmured a line of an old poem and found the feeling roused in him almost past bearing, so that he thought again he could not go on holding himself back. To be acknowledged by her true father was the thing she wanted most; and it was precisely because she made her poem as if it did not matter that he found her so touching.
"Yamagatsu" is a rough dweller of the hills, a term by which she disparages her own upbringing in Tsukushi. "Kakiho" is a hedge. "The place where its root first held" answers his "the hedge where it first took root"—that is, her parentage. "Who would ever come seeking" is a rhetorical question: no one would. Where his poem says the truth is bound to come out, hers denies that anyone would trouble over so low a birth. Keeping her longing for her father out of sight and speaking herself down instead, she shows at once her modesty and her shrewdness. That one word, the pink, binds two generations together is the whole point of the exchange.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Nadeshiko no tokonatsukashiki iro o miba
moto no kakine o hito ya tazunemu - Next Poem
-
Kusa wakami Hitachi no ura no Ikaga saki
ikade aimin Tago no uranami