恋ひわびて死ぬる薬のゆかしきに
雪の山にや跡を消なまし
雪の山にや跡を消なまし
- Roma-ji
-
Koiwabite shinuru kusuri no yukashiki ni
yuki no yama ni ya ato o kenamashi - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- Longing to know the drug by which one may die of love, shall I go into the snowy hills and leave no trace behind?
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Agemaki
The most extreme of the poems Kaoru spoke to himself in mourning for Oigimi. Unable to bear the loss, he says that he would rather disappear. This despair inclines him toward taking vows, and at the same time leads on to the search for Ukifune, who resembles the woman he lost.
"A drug by which one may die" reverses the familiar drug of immortality, and the inversion is striking. Yukashi is to want to see or to have. To leave no trace in the snowy hills is to go into the mountains and be heard of no more, with kiyu, to vanish, belonging to snow. The set forms of love-lament are used, and behind them the real choices of religion or flight can be seen.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
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- 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
- 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
- If you have decided that the time to come is short, then at the least, while I am here before your eyes, I would have you not turn away