露けさは昔今ともおもほえず
おほかた秋の夜こそつらけれ
おほかた秋の夜こそつらけれ
- Roma-ji
-
Tsuyukesa wa mukashi ima to mo omooezu
ōkata aki no yo koso tsurakere - English Translation
-
This wetness I can
not tell as of then or now,
and it is autumn
nights themselves, taken all in
all, that are hard to bear at all
- Meaning
- This wetness I cannot tell as belonging to then or to now; taken all in all, it is autumn nights themselves that are hard to bear.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Minori
Genji answered the retired Chancellor's poem with this one. He cannot tell the older grief from the present one, he says, and takes the sorrow not as a particular thing but as what autumn nights are. Two men who had once been rivals are here, in old age, sharing the same loss. Genji withdrew further from company after this, and though his wish to leave the world grew, he could not bring himself to it for fear of how it would look.
"This wetness" takes up the other man's dew. "Cannot tell as of then or now" is being unable to separate the two. "Taken all in all" is speaking generally. The final clause is emphatic, with the classical construction that requires its particular verb ending. Where the Chancellor set two autumns side by side, Genji says he cannot tell them apart and moves the subject to autumn itself; generalizing the grief is what makes its depth felt.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
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Inishie no aki sae ima no kokochi shite
nurenishi sode ni tsuyu zo okisou - Next Poem
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