ひたぶるにうれしからまし世の中に
あらぬ所と思はましかば
あらぬ所と思はましかば
- Roma-ji
-
Hitaburu ni ureshikaramashi yo no naka ni
aranu tokoro to omowamashikaba - English Translation
-
How wholly glad I
would be, if I could believe
that this were a place
somewhere apart from the world,
and not a part of it all
- Meaning
- How wholly glad I would be, if I could believe this were a place apart from the world and no part of it at all.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Azumaya
Found out by Niou, Ukifune was moved by her mother to a mean little house at Sanjo. In that poor lodging, with the noise of the town never stopping, she passed anxious days, and spoke this poem. It is the first she speaks in the tale, and the sense that runs through her whole life—that there is nowhere for her to settle—is already in it. Her mother answered and tried to comfort her.
Hitaburu ni is wholly, entirely. "A place not in the world" is somewhere other than this world, where the vexations of society do not reach. Mashikaba ... mashi is contrary to fact, a wish that cannot be granted. That the poem attempts nothing clever suits the way this character has been drawn.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- The upper leaves of the small hagi I had roped off are not disturbed— what dew, then, has come to turn the colour of the low leaves
- Had I known that it was rooted in the hagi of Miyagi Field, the dew would not have made a division in its own heart
- Even if I must look for a place that is not in this bitter world, I would find some way to see you in the height of your bloom
- Why did this water, which has never once run dry, not keep for me at least the shadow of the face of those who are here no more