恨めしや霞の衣誰れ着よと
春よりさきに花の散りけむ
春よりさきに花の散りけむ
- Roma-ji
-
Urameshi ya kasumi no koromo tare ki yo to
haru yori saki ni hana no chirikemu - English Translation
-
How it galls me—that,
leaving this robe of haze for
someone else to wear,
the blossom should have fallen
even before the spring did
- Meaning
- How it galls me that the blossom should have fallen before the spring itself, leaving this robe of haze for someone else to wear.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Kashiwagi
After the retired minister and Yugiri, Kashiwagi's younger brother, the Controller, added this third poem. Speaking as a brother, he puts into one word of resentment his inability to accept that this man of all men should have gone first. All three poems share the robe of haze, so that one death is mourned from three positions: father, friend, and brother. With this the mourning for Kashiwagi is brought to a close, and the tale goes on to the Fourth Month and Yugiri's second visit to the Ichijo residence.
"How it galls me" is a cry of resentment. "Robe of haze" is carried over from the two poems before and means mourning dress. "Before the spring did" is falling before the season is out. "The blossom should have fallen" figures a man dead young. Repeating the same words across three poems while moving through mourning, acceptance, and protest makes this a well-built set.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Wet with the droplets that fall from under the tree, I wear it backward— this robe of haze that has come to me in the spring this year
- Even the dead man cannot have thought of it—that, casting you aside, he would leave you to put on this haze of the evening
- If it comes to that, let me be made familiar as the twinned branches, saying that the leaf-guarding god had given me his leave
- Though the leaf-guarding god may no longer dwell in the oak, is this a treetop at our house that should be made familiar with men