かき曇り日かげも見えぬ奥山に
心をくらすころにもあるかな
心をくらすころにもあるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Kakikumori hikage mo mienu okuyama ni
kokoro o kurasu koro ni mo aru kana - English Translation
-
In these deep mountains
where the sky has clouded over
and no sunlight shows,
these are days in which I pass
the hours with a darkened heart
- Meaning
- In these deep mountains where the sky has clouded over and no sunlight shows, I pass these days with a darkened heart.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Agemaki
In the Eleventh Month Kaoru came to Uji and was shocked at how far Oigimi had failed. He stayed on and nursed her devotedly. Rites were said and food pressed on her to no purpose, and she weakened by the day. Soon after this poem she died with him beside her.
Kaki kumoru is to cloud over entirely. Hikage is sunlight, and serves as a figure for hope. Kokoro o kurasu is to pass one's days with a darkened mind, with kurasu, to live out the day, sounding in it. The darkened sky outside and the darkened mind within are joined in one word, and the poem catches the very stretch of time in which hope of recovery is being cut off.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- The plovers at the water's edge, where the frost bites cold, cannot bear it, and the sound of their crying is sad in the growing light
- The plover that shakes the frost of daybreak from its wings and cries aloud— does it know, then, what is in the heart of one who is grieving
- The tears that fall from me in crimson are of no use to me at all, since they will not dye the cloth to the colour of mourning
- Not to be left here, I follow with my longing the moon crossing the sky, since this is not a world where one may go on dwelling long