Tachisoite kie ya shinamashi uki koto o
omoimidaruru keburi kurabe ni

English Translation

Let me rise beside
you and go out with the smoke,
since we are matching
smoke against smoke, the trouble
that leaves us both in disorder

Meaning

Let me rise beside you and vanish with that smoke, since we are matching grief against grief, and both are left in disorder.

Commentary

Part Two: Kashiwagi

　When Kashiwagi's letter came, the Third Princess was too ashamed even to recall that night, and meant not to answer. Kojiju pressed her again and again, and at last she took up the brush and wrote only this much. When Kojiju brought it, Kashiwagi wept, and added one more poem of his own. Not long afterward the Princess bore a son. The child is Kaoru.

　"Rise beside" is standing up together with the smoke, and rising belongs with smoke as an associated word. "Vanish" carries a wish to be gone. "Matching smoke against smoke" is comparing whose grief sends up more, and it is built on the smoke of his own poem. Where he wrote of an attachment that outlasts death, she says only that she too wishes to be gone; there is not a word of love in it. The form of a reply is kept, and the substance is nothing but having nowhere to put herself—which is exactly where she stands.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Tachisoite kie ya shinamashi uki koto o omoimidaruru keburi kurabe ni

Tachisoite kie ya shinamashi uki koto o
omoimidaruru keburi kurabe ni