朝夕に泣く音を立つる小野山は
絶えぬ涙や音無の滝
絶えぬ涙や音無の滝
- Roma-ji
-
Asayū ni naku ne o tatsuru Onoyama wa
taenu namida ya Otonashi no taki - English Translation
-
On Ono mountain,
where morning and evening I
lift up my voice and
weep, do these tears that never
end become a soundless fall
- Meaning
- On Ono mountain, where morning and evening I weep aloud, do these tears that never end become the soundless waterfall?
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Yugiri
Left at the Ono villa after her mother's death, the Fallen Leaf Princess saw no one and wept through her days. Letters came steadily from Yugiri and she could not bring herself to answer. This poem was among the lines she wrote out idly to herself. She wished to take vows, and her father, Suzaku, would not allow it. In time, by Yugiri's arrangement, she was brought back to the Ichijo residence against her wishes.
"Lift up my voice and weep" is crying aloud. "Ono mountain" is the hill country there, a real place-name set down as the place her voice fills. "The soundless fall" is a waterfall famous in poetry for making no noise. "Tears that never end" are tears without limit. She weeps aloud, and the tears become a soundless fall: the poem says how grief can have no outlet, and it has the plain, unadorned sharpness that practice writing often does.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- Let me rise and mix with the smoke that went up from that mountain ridge, and not be made to lean toward any quarter I never meant
- As a keepsake that cannot ease the longing at all, it stands before me, clouded over with my tears—this jeweled box of hers