荻原や軒端の露にそぼちつつ
八重立つ霧を分けぞ行くべき
八重立つ霧を分けぞ行くべき
- Roma-ji
-
Ogiwara ya nokiba no tsuyu ni sobochitsutsu
yae tatsu kiri o wake zo yukubeki - English Translation
-
Soaked through and through
by the dew at the eaves of
this field of reeds, I
must go parting my way out
through mists that stand eightfold deep
- Meaning
- Soaked through by the dew at the eaves of this reed field, I must part my way out through mists that stand eightfold deep.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Yugiri
In the end the night went by with nothing gained. The moon was perfectly clear and came in unhindered by the mist. Yugiri left the villa in a way that could only look, to anyone watching, like a man going home in the morning. He spoke this poem as he went, describing himself wet with dew and pushing through mist, hoping for her pity. She answered and turned that aside as well. The priest conducting the rites saw him leaving at dawn, and from that everything began to move in a direction no one had intended.
"Field of reeds" is ground overgrown with them. "Dew at the eaves" is what gathers there, and it stands for tears. "Soaked through" is being wet to the skin. "Mists that stand eightfold deep" are layer upon layer of them, at once the difficulty of the road and the barrier between the two of them. He lays the morning's dew and mist together to plead his hardship, borrowing the shape of a lovers' parting at dawn while nothing whatever has happened—which gives the poem its irony.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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Wakeyukamu kusaba no tsuyu o kagoto nite
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