われなくて草の庵は荒れぬとも
このひとことはかれじとぞ思ふ
このひとことはかれじとぞ思ふ
- Roma-ji
-
Ware nakute kusa no io wa arenu tomo
kono hitokoto wa kareji to zo omou - English Translation
-
Though this hut of grass
should fall to ruin when I
am gone from the world,
this one word, I would believe,
will neither wither nor part
- Meaning
- Though this hut of grass fall to ruin when I am gone, this one word, I would believe, will neither wither nor be broken off.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Shiigamoto
In summer the Eighth Prince knew that his time was near, and asked Kaoru, who had come to Uji, to look after his daughters. He put the charge into a single word and then spoke this poem. Kaoru answered and gave his promise, and the prince died soon after at the mountain temple. This entrusting of the daughters governs everything that follows in the Uji chapters.
The hut of grass is the villa at Uji, with the sense of a poor and temporary dwelling. In hitokoto, one word, koto also carries koto, the zither, and kareji holds both kare, to wither, and kare, to part. The hut may fall to ruin while the word does not wither, and grass and withering hold the contrast together. That a father's plea for his daughters becomes the chain binding Kaoru to Uji gives the chapter its weight.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- I have come to seek where the mountain cherry glows, and have broken off a spray of the very same blossom for us both to wear
- One who breaks a spray to wear it, and in passing goes by the rough hedge of a mountain rustic's house— just a traveller of spring
- In what age to come could I ever part from it— the hut of grass where we have bound between us now a promise for long ages
- How must it be now, the mountain village in fall where the stag bells out— this evening, when the dew lies heavy on the small hagi