待つ里もいかが聞くらむ方がたに
心騒がすひぐらしの声
心騒がすひぐらしの声
- Roma-ji
-
Matsu sato mo ikaga kikuramu katagata ni
kokoro sawagasu higurashi no koe - English Translation
-
And how does the house
that waits for me hear it too?
On this side and that
it sets the heart astir, this
voice of the evening cicada
- Meaning
- And how does the house that waits for me hear it? On this side and on that it sets the heart astir, this voice of the evening cicada.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Wakana Ge
Genji answered the Third Princess's poem with this one. He brings up Murasaki no Ue, waiting for him to come back, and says that his own heart is unquiet on both counts—turning the Princess's reproach gently aside. He went on to Nijo, and the next morning, setting out again, he found Kashiwagi's letter and began to suspect what had passed. From then on he kept an even surface toward both the Princess and Kashiwagi while his manner toward them turned cold.
"The house that waits" is the place where someone waits for him, that is, Murasaki no Ue at Nijo. "On this side and that" is the double claim on him, Nijo and Rokujo both. "Voice of the evening cicada" takes up her own words, so the exchange is properly kept. He does not meet her complaint head-on; he says that he too is unquiet and moves the subject. Nothing is given offense, and nothing she asked is answered—a poem with a quiet tension in it as the chapter turns toward its end.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- Let us make it now, a promise for beyond this world as well: never let the heart come between us, like dew set as beads on lotus
- Is it that my sleeves should be wet with evening dew? Hearing, as you hear, the cicada crying now, you rise all the same and go
- Could I hear of your fisher's life as a thing apart? The one who let fall brine at the shore of Suma was no other man than I
- How is it that you fell behind the fisher's boat? You were the one who went out fishing, after all, there at the shore of Akashi