若草のね見むものとは思はねど
むすぼほれたる心地こそすれ
むすぼほれたる心地こそすれ
- Roma-ji
-
Wakakusa no ne mimu mono to wa omowanedo
musubōretaru kokochi koso sure - English Translation
-
It is not that I
think to lie down with you as
with the young grasses,
and yet I have the feeling
of something knotted within
- Meaning
- It is not that I think to lie down as with the young grasses, and yet I have the feeling of something knotted within me.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Agemaki
Forbidden to go to Uji, Niou passed his days in the capital out of spirits. By way of diversion he sent this half joking poem to his elder sister by the same mother, the First Princess. His restlessness at being unable to move while his mind was on Naka no Kimi comes out as a joke made to someone near at hand.
Wakakusa no is a pillow word attached to ne. Ne is both ne, to sleep, and ne, root, so that the root of the young grass and lying together are laid over each other. Musubohoru is both grasses tangling and a mind clouding over, and belongs with the grass. To name a thing and deny it in the same breath catches how little he knows what to do with himself.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- On the wall of rock of a hill village where he I knew is no more, how long and constant of heart the creeping vine has spread out
- Now that autumn ends and the loneliness increases at the foot of the tree, do not blow past and be gone, wind in the pines on the peak
- It is the same sky that the two of us look on, and yet, why is it, this winter rain that adds to not knowing how you may be
- Here in the deep hills, where the hail comes down, morning and evening alike, the sky that I look upon goes on darkening over