見し人の影澄み果てぬ池水に
ひとり宿守る秋の夜の月
ひとり宿守る秋の夜の月
- Roma-ji
-
Mishi hito no kage sumihatenu ikemizu ni
hitori yado moru aki no yo no tsuki - English Translation
-
In the pond water
where the one I used to see
no longer stands clear,
keeping the house all alone—
the moon of an autumn night
- Meaning
- In the pond water where the face I used to see no longer stands clear, the moon of this autumn night keeps the house alone.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Yugiri
On the way back from Ono, Yugiri passed the Ichijo residence where Kashiwagi had lived. With its master gone the place was empty and neglected, and only the pond in the garden still held the moon as it always had. Watching the moon of the thirteenth night come out bright, he thought of his dead friend and spoke this poem. Afterward he set about arranging to bring the Fallen Leaf Princess back to that house, and had the carriages readied without waiting for her consent.
"The one I used to see" is someone long familiar—the dead Kashiwagi. "No longer stands clear" is a reflection that will not appear, the word covering both a person's face and the light of the moon. "Clear" also sounds the word for living in a place, saying that no one lives here now. "Keeps the house" is standing guard over it, so that only the moon watches an empty home. Pivot words are laid one on another, and the loss of a friend is held inside a quiet piece of landscape.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- 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
- The mountain dwellers, whose mourning robes are heavy with the autumn dew, have added a voice of their own to the crying of deer
- When am I to come and wake you? For that one word you spoke, that it be when the dream of a night that never ends has broken off
- On Ono mountain, where morning and evening I lift up my voice and weep, do these tears that never end become a soundless fall