松島の海人の濡衣なれぬとて
脱ぎ替へつてふ名を立ためやは
脱ぎ替へつてふ名を立ためやは
- Roma-ji
-
Matsushima no ama no nureginu narenu tote
nugikaetsu chō na o tatame ya wa - English Translation
-
Because the wet robe
of a fisher of Matsushima
has been worn soft, would
you raise the name of one who
has changed it for another
- Meaning
- Because a fisher's wet robe at Matsushima has been worn soft, would you have it said that you changed it for another?
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Yugiri
Yugiri answered Kumoinokari's poem with this one. Long married as they are, he asks, is she to let it be said that she left her husband and took vows?—checking a wife who has raised the possibility. It was not enough to cool her anger. The morning after he stayed the night with the Fallen Leaf Princess, Kumoinokari took the small children and went home to her father. He went to fetch her and she would not receive him, and there the marriage broke.
"A fisher's wet robe at Matsushima" takes up her place-name and her fisher, and "wet robe" also carries a rumor one has not earned. "Worn soft" repeats her own verb. "Changed it for another" is putting on a nun's habit instead. "Raise the name" is to set people talking. Receiving every word she used and then shifting the whole matter to how it will look: his persuasion always rests on argument, and here as elsewhere.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- On a winter night when, resent it as I may, my breast will not clear, it is barred the tighter still— this stone gate of the barrier
- Rather than resent this body worn soft with use, shall I not cut it over into the habit of a fisher of Matsushima
- Is there some old bond? For I keep you in my mind, and I find that I think of you with pity and hear of you with resentment
- For what cause is it that this one self of mine, which counts for nothing here, is thought of with bitterness and heard of with tenderness