色も香もうつるばかりにこの春は
花さく宿をかれずもあらなん
花さく宿をかれずもあらなん
- Roma-ji
-
Iro mo ka mo utsuru bakari ni kono haru wa
hana saku yado o karezu mo aranan - English Translation
-
Until their color
and their scent have passed to you,
this spring at least, do
not go away from this house
where the flowers are in bloom
- Meaning
- Until their color and their scent have passed to you, do not, this spring, go away from this house where the flowers are in bloom.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Umegae
This is Genji's answer to the Prince. He then passed the cup to Kashiwagi, who made his own poem before passing it on to Yugiri; for one who takes the cup must make a poem, and the whole sequence of that evening grows out of the rule.
"Until their color and their scent have passed" is: until the flowers have dyed you through. Where the Prince said his heart was already dyed, Genji answers with the word for passing over. Speaking of scent clinging to a robe, he asks his guest to stay long enough for the place to sink into him. "The house where the flowers bloom" is the Rokujo estate; "karezu," not leaving, sounds also "not withering." The Prince had said a thousand years might pass; then stay, Genji replies, at least for this spring—an answer with nothing wanting in it. His thanks to the man who served as judge become, in the same breath, a host's courtesy.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- It is to that branch that my heart clings the closer— though I keep folded and hidden away the scent that others would find fault with
- At the warbler's voice my heart will wander further still from me—here where already it has been dyed fast to these flowering boughs
- Blow, and go on blowing, flute of the deep night, until even the branch where the warbler has made its roost bends and sways before the sound
- The very wind, it seems, has the grace to keep clear of these flowering boughs— should I blow my way so near that the birds can bear no more?