さしかへる宇治の川長朝夕の
しづくや袖を朽たしはつらむ
しづくや袖を朽たしはつらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Sashikaeru Uji no kawaosa asayū no
shizuku ya sode o kutashihatsuramu - English Translation
-
Poling back and forth,
the ferryman of Uji
must have let the drops
of morning and of evening
rot his sleeves quite through at last
- Meaning
- The ferryman who poles back and forth across the Uji river must by now have let the drops of morning and evening rot his sleeves quite through.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Hashihime
Oigimi's answer to Kaoru's poem of the lady of the bridge. He had spoken of drops falling from the pole, and she takes up the pole and gives it to the ferryman who crosses the river every day of his life. Making herself and her sister into that ferryman, she shows without saying it plainly how constantly they are in tears.
Kawaosa is the man who works the ferry. Sashikaeru is to pole back and forth, and carries on the pole from his poem. Kutasu is to soak a thing until it rots, the standard way of speaking of sleeves that are never dry. Against his passing sympathy she sets a grief that comes morning and evening without a break, and the weight of the sisters' daily life comes through.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Hashihime no kokoro o kumite takase sasu
sao no shizuku ni sode zo nurenuru - Next Poem
-
Me no mae ni kono yo o somuku kimi yori mo
yoso ni wakaruru tama zo kanashiki