あはれをもいかに知りてか慰めむ
あるや恋しき亡きや悲しき
あるや恋しき亡きや悲しき
- Roma-ji
-
Aware o mo ika ni shirite ka nagusamemu
aru ya koishiki naki ya kanashiki - English Translation
-
Knowing it for what,
am I to give you comfort?
Is it the living
one you long for, or the one
who is gone that grieves you so
- Meaning
- Knowing it for what, am I to comfort you? Is it the living one you long for, or the one who is gone that grieves you?
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Yugiri
The Ichijo lady died, and Yugiri threw himself into arranging the funeral and the services, turning what was to have been a modest affair into something grand. No answer came from the Fallen Leaf Princess, and he grew more and more downcast. Watching him, Kumoinokari put this poem to him as a way of asking what was in his mind. He answered evasively, and the distance between them widened.
"It" here is grief, the pain in him. "Knowing it for what" asks on what ground she is to console him. "The living one" is the Fallen Leaf Princess. "The one who is gone" is the Ichijo lady. She sets out two possibilities and lets him choose, when in truth neither is forgivable—which makes it one of her most cutting poems.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Taking the meadow where the maidenflower droops for what sort of place, did you come and borrow it as lodging for a single night
- I did part my way through the thick grasses of the autumn field, and yet did I ever knot the grass into a pillow for sleep
- Which of them should I single out and dwell upon? In a world where dew that vanishes and forms again is not on grass blades alone
- The village being far, I have parted my way through Ono's bamboo grass, and I too, like the deer, do not spare my voice at all