女郎花乱るる野辺に混じるとも
露のあだ名を我にかけめや
露のあだ名を我にかけめや
- Roma-ji
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Ominaeshi midaruru nobe ni majiru tomo
tsuyu no adana o ware ni kakeme ya - English Translation
-
Though I should mingle
in fields where the maiden flowers
are in disorder,
would I let a name for being
light with the dew fall on me
- Meaning
- Though I mingle in fields where the maiden flowers grow in disorder, would I let a name for lightness with the dew be laid on me?
- Commentary
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Part Three: Kagero
On an autumn evening Kaoru waited on the Akashi Empress and fell into banter with her gentlewomen. Ben no Omoto and the others teased him for his gravity, and he answered with this poem. Four poems follow. A man sunk in the loss of the people of Uji, trading light words in the brightness of the palace, shows the emptiness of his mind the more for it.
Ominaeshi, the maiden flower, stands for a beautiful woman, here the gentlewomen themselves. "Fields in disorder" are fields where the flowers grow thick, and hint at a place full of women. "A name from the dew" is a reputation for lightness, from the idea of being wetted by dew. Kakeme ya is a rhetorical question: he will bear no such name. A man everyone calls stiff is here defending that very reputation.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
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Ogi no ha ni tsuyu fukimusubu akikaze mo
yūbe zo wakite mi ni wa shimikeru - Next Poem
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Hana to ieba na koso ada nare ominaeshi
nabete no tsuyu ni midare ya wa suru