独りゐてこがるる胸の苦しきに
思ひあまれる炎とぞ見し
思ひあまれる炎とぞ見し
- Roma-ji
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Hitori ite kogaruru mune no kurushiki ni
omoiamareru honoo to zo mishi - English Translation
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Sitting there alone,
her breast burning with such pain—
it was that, I thought,
that overflowed at last and
rose from her as a flame
- Meaning
- Sitting alone with her breast burning so, it was that, I thought, which overflowed at last and rose from her as a flame.
- Commentary
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Part One: Makibashira
The next evening the Commander again hurried to set out for Tamakazura's. The robe of the night before was burned through, the smell of scorching about it was strange, and the scent had soaked into his underclothes. Since it would be plain that his wife had been jealous of him, and Tamakazura would dislike it, he changed and bathed and put himself carefully in order. It was then, as she burned incense into his robes, that Moku no Kimi made this poem, adding that to see him abandon his wife so completely was more than even a servant could watch unmoved. Her eyes above the sleeve she held to her mouth were lovely; but he only wondered what had ever possessed him to take up with such a woman. A heartless thing, the narrator remarks.
"Hitori," alone, plays on the censer; and the "hi" of "omohi" is fire. "Burning" and "flame" belong with them. What she did, so far outside all reason, is read as the fire in a deserted wife's breast breaking out at last: the poem is full of sympathy for her. And beneath that lies the speaker's own case—a woman who had known his favor and lost it. Made by a servant reproving her master, it stands as a voice from inside the house raised against him.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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Kokoro sae sora ni midareshi yukimoyo ni
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Uki koto o omoisawageba samazama ni
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