奥山の松葉に積もる雪とだに
消えにし人を思はましかば
消えにし人を思はましかば
- Roma-ji
-
Okuyama no matsuba ni tsumoru yuki to dani
kienishi hito o omowamashikaba - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- If only I could think of the one who has gone as I think of the snow that gathers on the pine needles in the deep hills.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Shiigamoto
Naka no Kimi's answer to her sister. Snow falls again, but a person does not come back. The exchange between the two of them conveys quietly how precarious life at Uji has become since their father's death, and the scene moves on to Kaoru's arrival through the snow.
"As snow, at least" is the sense of yuki to dani. Mashikaba is contrary to fact, a wish that cannot be granted. Snow melts and falls again, while a person melts away for good. Kiyu, to melt, belongs with snow, and laying that word over a human death sets the turning of the seasons sharply against the single death of a human being.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- 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
- 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
- Where snow lies deep on the bridge across the mountain, there is not one track of another treading through— none, my lord, except your own
- Over the hill stream shut in ice, which the horse breaks underfoot, shall I, while I am about guiding another, be first to cross?