松虫の声を訪ねて来つれども
また萩原の露に惑ひぬ
また萩原の露に惑ひぬ
- Roma-ji
-
Matsumushi no koe o tazunete kitsuredomo
mata hagihara no tsuyu ni madoinu - English Translation
-
I came here seeking
the voice of the pine cricket,
and once again I
have lost my way among the
dew of the bush-clover fields
- Meaning
- I came seeking the voice of the pine cricket, and once again I have lost my way in the dew of the bush-clover fields.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Tenarai
This was spoken on the Captain's third visit to the house at Ono. He had come, he says, in memory of his dead wife, and has again been thrown into confusion by someone new. The nun wanted him for Ukifune and made much of him whenever he came, but Ukifune would not answer him even through a screen, and kept to the inner rooms.
Matsumushi is an autumn cricket, and matsu, to wait, sounds in it: waiting for and remembering his dead wife. The dew of the bush-clover field hints at tears and stands for Ukifune, the new object of his feeling. Madoinu is both to lose one's road and to be confused in mind. Pretext and real motive are set out separately within the one poem, and his position is stated frankly.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Do not bend to the wind of that field of the dead, O maiden flower: I will rope you round as mine, far though the road may be
- Moved and planted here, the maiden flower is not troubled in her heart— not in this hut of grass, where the bitter world is turned from
- Do not lay the blame on a house overgrown with creeper, for a hunting robe that has come here parting the dew of the autumn fields
- Is it that you are not one to look with feeling at the late-night moon, that you will not stay the night in a house so near the ridge