うきことを思ひさわげばさまざまに
くゆる煙ぞいとど立ちそふ
くゆる煙ぞいとど立ちそふ
- Roma-ji
-
Uki koto o omoisawageba samazama ni
kuyuru keburi zo itodo tachisou - English Translation
-
When I turn over
what happened, my heart is stirred,
and this way and that
the smoke of my regretting
rises thicker than before
- Meaning
- When I turn over what happened my heart is stirred, and the smoke of my regretting rises thicker, this way and that.
- Commentary
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Part One: Makibashira
This is his reply. He went on to sigh that if last night's outrage came to anyone's ears he would lose both wife and lady, and then he left. A single night apart had made Tamakazura seem lovelier still, and he could not think of dividing his heart at all; so he stayed on and on at the Rokujo estate. At his own house the rites went on with a great noise, and hearing how loudly the spirit raged he grew afraid of the disgrace that must follow and would not go near; and when he did come he kept to another wing and had only the children brought out to him.
"Kuyuru" plays smoke smoldering against "to regret." Where Moku spoke of a flame and meant the violence of jealousy, he turns it into smoke and makes it regret—using the same imagery of fire and shifting its sense. But the regret is less for the pain he has caused his wife than for the danger to his own position, as the sentence that follows makes plain. The gap between the poem and the prose around it shows exactly what governs this man: the opinion of the world.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
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Hitori ite kogaruru mune no kurushiki ni
omoiamareru honoo to zo mishi - Next Poem
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Ima wa tote yado karenu tomo narekitsuru
maki no hashira wa ware o wasuru na