いにしへの秋の夕べの恋しきに
今はと見えし明けぐれの夢
今はと見えし明けぐれの夢
- Roma-ji
-
Inishie no aki no yūbe no koishiki ni
ima wa to mieshi akegure no yume - English Translation
-
The autumn evening
of long ago is what I
long for, and what showed
itself as the end was a
dream in the dark before dawn
- Meaning
- It is the autumn evening of long ago that I long for; and what showed itself as the end was a dream in the dark before dawn.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Minori
When Murasaki no Ue died, Genji would not be moved from her side, and Yugiri had to take charge of the funeral entirely. Sunk in grief, Genji did not even draw the curtain when his son came near, and so Yugiri looked, for the first time, long at her face. In death she was more beautiful than she had been alive. He spoke this poem to himself then. He had glimpsed her once, years before, on the day of the great wind, and that memory lies under the poem.
"The autumn evening of long ago" is that day, when he saw her through a gap. "What I long for" is what draws him back. "Showed itself as the end" is seeing her at the last. "The dark before dawn" is the hour at which she died. Two kinds of light—an autumn dusk and the grey before morning—hold her living face and her dead one, and a single poem contains both meetings across all the years between.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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Akikaze ni shibashi tomaranu tsuyu no yo o
tare ka kusaba no ue to nomi mimu - Next Poem
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Inishie no aki sae ima no kokochi shite
nurenishi sode ni tsuyu zo okisou