袖ふれし梅は変はらぬ匂ひにて
根ごめ移ろふ宿やことなる
根ごめ移ろふ宿やことなる
- Roma-ji
-
Sode fureshi ume wa kawaranu nioi nite
negome utsurou yado ya kotonaru - English Translation
-
The plum my sleeve brushed
is unaltered in its scent,
and yet is it the
dwelling, moving root and all,
that is to be otherwise
- Meaning
- The plum my sleeve brushed is unaltered in its scent; is it the dwelling, moving root and all, that will be otherwise?
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Sawarabi
Kaoru's reply to her poem on the plum. He says that the flower does not change, and that it is the household, pulled up root and all, that will be different, so grieving over the one who is leaving Uji. The next day, on the seventh of the Second Month, Naka no Kimi was received at the Nijo residence and treated by Niou with great care. Only the old nun Ben was left at Uji, and Kaoru went forward with his plan of turning the villa into a temple.
"The plum my sleeve brushed" is a plum whose scent has passed into a sleeve, a phrase that has suggested the tie between one person and another since the old poems. Negome is root and all, wholly. Utsurou is to shift and alter, and taking over her "recalls the old days" he turns it back: what alters is not the flower but the person. Following plum, scent, root, dwelling, the fact of a change of house comes to lie over a fear of a change of heart.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- How brief a thing—no sooner is the robe of haze cut out than the time has come round for the flowers to loosen and open out
- There will be no one left to see them, in this hill village where the storm goes astray—and yet the scent of flowers recalls old days
- Had I thrown myself into the river of tears that comes first of all, mine would have been a life not left behind by the one gone
- Though I were to sink into that river of tears you would throw yourself in, I do not think that I could forget those longed-for shoals