Nagarete no tanome munashiki Takekawa ni
yo wa uki mono to omoi shiriniki

English Translation

Time has flowed away
and the hope you gave me then
came to nothing there
by Takekawa I learned
that the world is a hard thing

Meaning

Time has flowed away and the hope you gave me came to nothing; there by Takekawa I learned how hard the world is.

Commentary

Part Three: Takekawa

　Kaoru answered her with this, and the women found the pensive look of him affecting. He had never given himself over to grief as the Chamberlain Lieutenant had, but there was something in him that they found hard to watch. Saying that he was on the point of speaking out of turn, he rose to go, and was called in to the Retired Emperor, who received him though it made him awkward. The Retired Emperor spoke fondly of the music the late Rokujo had made on the morning after a men's dance-and-song, and gave the koto to the lady and the lute to Kaoru. Even at such times Kaoru never lost his composure, and only hinted at the grief of a wish unfulfilled.

　"Nagarete" belongs with the "kawa," the river, of Takekawa, and also means the passing of years. "Tanome" is the hope others had let him entertain of a match with her. "Take" plays against "yo," the joint of the bamboo and the world we live in, so that pivot and association are layered through the single word Takekawa. He meets her "do you remember that night" head-on: that was the night, he says, when he learned how hard the world is. It is a fitting last exchange for the chapter, and with these two poems the twenty-four poems of Takekawa come to an end.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Nagarete no tanome munashiki Takekawa ni yo wa uki mono to omoi shiriniki

Nagarete no tanome munashiki Takekawa ni
yo wa uki mono to omoi shiriniki