七夕の逢ふ瀬は雲のよそに見て
別れの庭に露ぞおきそふ
別れの庭に露ぞおきそふ
- Roma-ji
-
Tanabata no ause wa kumo no yoso ni mite
wakare no niwa ni tsuyu zo okisou - English Translation
-
The Weaver's meeting
I watch as a thing beyond
the clouds, apart from
me, while in this garden of
parting the dew settles more
- Meaning
- The Weaver's meeting I watch as something beyond the clouds and apart from me, while in this garden of parting the dew settles deeper still.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Maboroshi
The seventh of the Seventh Month came round. For the world it was the day the two stars meet; for Genji it was the day he was made to know that he would never meet her again. The next morning, looking out at a garden soaked with dew, he spoke this poem to himself. The pattern—each observance throwing her absence into relief—repeats all through the chapter. The first anniversary of her death, on the fourteenth of the Eighth Month, was approaching, and he would share his grief with those who served him.
The festival is the one night a year on which the Weaver and the Herdsman meet. "Meeting" contains a word for a shallows, which belongs with the River of Heaven. "Beyond the clouds, apart from me" is something that has nothing to do with him. "This garden of parting" is a garden given over to it. "The dew settles more" has dew for tears, and the verb belongs with the dew. Stars that meet once a year are set against a man who will never meet again.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- Through this summer day that I spend weeping, with no occupation, comes the voice of an insect, as though it were laying blame on me
- Even seeing the fireflies, which know when night has come, what saddens me is this longing of mine that keeps to no hour at all
- There is no bound at all to the tears of longing for her—and today, what is it that they are calling the end of, after all this
- This body of mine that longs for her draws toward its own end, and yet what remains in abundance turns out to be only tears