秋霧の晴れぬ雲居にいとどしく
この世をかりと言ひ知らすらむ
この世をかりと言ひ知らすらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Akigiri no harenu kumoi ni itodoshiku
kono yo o kari to ii shirasuramu - English Translation
-
In the reach of sky
where the autumn mist will not
clear, all the more now
they tell us, as they cry, that
this world is a borrowed one
- Meaning
- In the sky where the autumn mist will not clear, the geese cry all the more that this world is only borrowed.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Shiigamoto
After the Eighth Prince's death, Kaoru looked up at the geese crossing the sky above Uji and spoke this to himself. He had been drawn to the impermanence of things from the first, and the prince's death settled the matter for him. From here he goes on wavering between the wish to take vows and his love for Oigimi.
Kari carries both kari, wild goose, and kari, borrowed or provisional. The cry of the geese sounds to him like an announcement that the world is only lodged in. Kumoi is the sky where the clouds are, and the autumn mist that will not clear lies over a mind that will not clear either. The view of impermanence the prince taught and Kaoru took up is concentrated in this one poem.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Seeing how the low reeds have altered in colour, I think of your sleeves, and how they must be worn thin in the dark dye of mourning
- These altered sleeves are the lodging that the dew takes, and beyond even that, this body of mine has nowhere at all to be set
- Since you went from us and the steep path by the rocks fell into disuse, with what mind am I to look on the snow upon the pines
- If only I could think of the one who has gone as I think of snow that gathers on the needles of the pines in the deep hills