おくれじと空ゆく月を慕ふかな
つひに住むべきこの世ならねば
つひに住むべきこの世ならねば
- Roma-ji
-
Okureji to sora yuku tsuki o shitau kana
tsui ni sumubeki kono yo naraneba - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Not to be left behind, I follow the moon crossing the sky with my longing, since this is no world one may dwell in long.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Agemaki
Kaoru spoke this to himself, looking at the moon after Oigimi's death. The wish to follow her and a resigned view of the impermanence of things are mixed in it. His desire to take vows grew stronger, but with Naka no Kimi to look after and duties at court he could not leave the world.
Okureji is not to be left behind, and expresses the wish to follow the dead. The moon crossing the sky is the moon going down in the west, and suggests where her spirit has gone. Sumu, to dwell, carries sumu, to be clear, which belongs with the moon. Longing after a clear moon is laid over aspiration toward the Pure Land, and his religious cast of mind stands out sharply.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- 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
- 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
- Wanting so to know the drug by which one may die of longing at last, shall I go into the snow of the hills and leave no trace
- Even to look back and call up what has gone by is to find it frail; on what, then, should I rely for all the time still to come