命あらばそれとも見まし人知れぬ
岩根にとめし松の生ひ末
岩根にとめし松の生ひ末
- Roma-ji
-
Inochi araba sore to mo mimashi hito shirenu
iwane ni tomeshi matsu no oisue - English Translation
-
Had I life enough,
I might have looked and known him—
the pine I have left
among the rocks, unremarked,
and how it grows on from here
- Meaning
- Had I life enough, I might have looked and known him: the pine left unremarked among the rocks, and how it grows on from here.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Hashihime
This is the last poem in the bundle Ben gave him, written by Kashiwagi for the child just born. Reading it, Kaoru knows for certain what he had suspected, that he is not Genji's son. Yet when he goes to his mother and finds her in her nun's habit, reading her sutra with an untroubled mind, he cannot bring himself to ask, and the secret stays shut inside him.
The pine set among the rocks is Kaoru himself, the child left where no one would remark it. The pine is a tree of long life, and the contrast sharpens the father's regret at not living to watch it grow. "I might have looked and known him" is contrary to fact, a wish that cannot be granted. The hero of the Uji chapters reads this poem as the proof of his own birth, and it carries the weight proper to the close of the chapter.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
-
Me no mae ni kono yo o somuku kimi yori mo
yoso ni wakaruru tama zo kanashiki - Next Poem
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Yamakaze ni kasumi fukitoku koe wa aredo
hedatete miyuru ochikata no shiranami