なかなかに折りやまどはむ藤の花
たそかれ時のたどたどしくは
たそかれ時のたどたどしくは
- Roma-ji
-
Nakanaka ni ori ya madowamu fuji no hana
tasokaredoki no tadotadoshiku wa - English Translation
-
Rather, I might be
lost in the plucking of it,
this wisteria—
if the hour of the dusk should
leave me too uncertain of my way
- Meaning
- Rather, I might be at a loss how to pluck it, this wisteria, if the dusk should leave me too uncertain of my way.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Fujiura
This is Yugiri's answer to the invitation. It was the word he had secretly awaited for years, and, holding down the leap of his heart, he made this poem with every show of deference, adding, "I have lost my nerve and blundered; pray set it right for me." When Kashiwagi, the messenger, offered to escort him, Yugiri sent him back with, "No need of a troublesome guard." Then he reported the matter to his father Genji, and, with his leave, went dressed in the fine robes Genji had chosen for him.
"Nakanaka ni" is rather, or all too readily. "Lost in the plucking" is to be at a loss how to break off the branch. The wisteria is Kumoinokari, and to pluck it is to take her to wife. "If the dusk should leave me uncertain" takes up the Minister's own "dusk." He receives the invitation gratefully, yet answers that in the gathering dark he cannot be sure the consent is really given: gladness and unease together, entrusted to the dimness of the hour. In disparaging himself—"I have lost my nerve and blundered"—one sees both the tension of the moment and Yugiri's still-cautious nature.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- To say all is over and so forget what cannot be forgotten—is this, then, the sort of heart that bends before the world's own way?
- In the deepening dusk, when the wisteria of my house glows dark— will you not come and seek out what remains here of the spring?
- On the purple, then, of the wisteria will I lay my grievance—though it galls me that it should climb and bloom out beyond the pine
- How many a spring heavy with dew have I passed and come at last to— this, the hour when the flower unlooses its knotted bud?