よそへてぞ見るべかりける白露の
契りかおきし朝顔の花
契りかおきし朝顔の花
- Roma-ji
-
Yosoete zo mirubekarikeru shiratsuyu no
chigiri ka okishi asagao no hana - English Translation
-
I should have looked at
her as a likeness and kept
her for my own—this
morning glory that the white
dew pledged itself to and left
- Meaning
- I should have looked on her as a likeness and kept her for myself: this morning glory that the white dew pledged itself to and left behind.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Yadorigi
Kaoru called on Naka no Kimi at the Nijo residence, had a morning glory picked in the garden, and sent it in with this poem. Now that the elder sister was gone, he says, he should have kept the younger for himself as her memorial. Naka no Kimi answered with a lament over her own condition. Across her sister's death the two of them drew closer, and that closeness is what later gives rise to Niou's suspicion.
Yosou is to liken one thing to another, to see the younger sister in place of the elder. "White dew" is Oigimi and "the morning glory" is Naka no Kimi. Calling the flower one that the dew pledged itself to and left shows a tie handed on from sister to sister. The pattern of Kaoru's mind, always after a likeness, which recurs through the whole Uji sequence, is put into words plainly here.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- It is a garden chrysanthemum that withered, unable to bear the frost—and yet the colour left behind has not faded
- Shall I praise the hue of this one morning's little while, and see in it a flower that hangs on but till the dew that settled goes
- Beside the frailty of a flower that withers before the dew goes, it is the dew left behind that is frailer than the rest
- At this house of mine, where even the moon of the wide sky puts up, now the evening of waiting goes by, and you are not in sight