春までの命も知らず雪のうちに
色づく梅を今日かざしてむ
色づく梅を今日かざしてむ
- Roma-ji
-
Haru made no inochi mo shirazu yuki no uchi ni
irozuku ume o kyō kazashitemu - English Translation
-
Not knowing whether
I shall live until the spring,
let me wear today
in my hair this plum that has
taken color in the snow
- Meaning
- Not knowing whether I shall live until spring, let me wear in my hair today this plum that has taken color in the snow.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Maboroshi
From the nineteenth of the Twelfth Month the rite of the Buddhas' names was held over three days—a year-end service of repentance. Genji showed himself in company for the first time in a long while, and he was more beautiful than he had been, so that the priests could not keep back their tears. Offering the cup to the officiant, he had a branch of red plum cut, just taking color in the snow, and spoke this poem. The officiant answered with a prayer for his long life. It is the last poem Genji speaks before others.
"Whether I shall live until the spring" is not knowing. "In the snow" is where the branch stands. "Taken color" is beginning to redden—a flower opening before its season. "Wear in my hair" is the ornament placed on head or cap. To wear a flower without waiting for spring is itself the knowledge of how little time is left, and though the poem belongs to a religious service it sounds very like a death verse.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Meaning to follow the one who has crossed over the mountain of death, I look at the traces of her hand and am lost the more
- Gathered up and looked at, they come to nothing—these salt-weeds of hers; so let them be smoke and go up into that same sky as she
- Praying that you were a flower to see a thousand springs, I find my own body has grown old along with the snow as it came down
- Lost in my own thoughts, not knowing the months and days as they went past me— is it today that the year and my own life come to an end