いつぞやも花の盛りに一目見し
木のもとさへや秋は寂しき
木のもとさへや秋は寂しき
- Roma-ji
-
Itsu zo ya mo hana no sakari ni hitome mishi
ko no moto sae ya aki wa sabishiki - English Translation
-
Even the foot of
the tree I saw once, that time,
when the flowers were
at their height—even that place
is desolate in autumn
- Meaning
- Even the foot of the tree I glimpsed once when the flowers were at their height is desolate now in autumn.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Agemaki
One of five poems exchanged by the young lords who went with Niou to Uji on his maple-viewing party. The Consultant Captain, a son of Yugiri, sets his memory of the cherry in spring against the autumn scene before him. Beneath the brilliance of the outing, Niou was not being allowed near the house of the sisters.
In ki no moto the syllable ko is taken by some to sound as ko, child, and so to point at the daughters who lost their father. Itsu zo ya mo is at some time before, recalling the spring cherry in the Shiigamoto chapter. Setting one place in spring against the same place in autumn is a standard turn, and with the four poems that follow it fixes the outsider's view of the villa from a distance.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- It is not that we are to be broken off, and yet must you, like the lady of the bridge, wet through your lone sleeve in the night hours
- Am I to go on waiting out the far reaches of the Uji bridge, with nothing to trust in but your word that it will not break
- It is the cherry that brings it home to us all: blossom at its best and crimson leaf alike belong to a world that does not stay
- By what way, I wonder, did the autumn take itself off and go from us, when the shade of the crimson leaves is so hard to pass by