はかなくて世に古川の憂き瀬には
尋ねも行かじ二本の杉
尋ねも行かじ二本の杉
- Roma-ji
-
Hakanakute yo ni Furukawa no uki se ni wa
tazune mo yukaji futamoto no sugi - English Translation
-
Having passed my life
so frailly, I will not go
seeking out again
those bitter shallows, nor the
two cedars of the old stream
- Meaning
- Having passed my life so frailly, I will not go seeking out those bitter shallows again, nor the two cedars by the old stream.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Tenarai
In the Ninth Month the nun set out once more for Hatsuse and urged Ukifune to come with her. But Hatsuse was bound up for Ukifune with the days that followed her own pilgrimage there with her mother, when Kaoru had first seen her at Uji on the way home. Resolved never to take that road again, she spoke this poem. The nun answered, sorry to hear it, and went down from the hills leaving her behind.
Furukawa is the old stream at Hatsuse, with heru, to pass one's life, sounding in it. "The bitter shallows" carries the u of Uji and ushi, bitter. The two cedars are a famous spot at Hatsuse, from the Kokinshu poem about meeting again after years beside the two cedars of the old stream at Hatsuse. That she should refuse exactly the meeting the place stands for is the point of the poem.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Of things long ago that will not be forgotten, and at the hard joints of the flute-bamboo as well, I have wept aloud outright
- At the flute's voice, things long ago came back to me, and at the hour when you were turning home again my sleeves too were wet with tears
- I do not know how the cedars by the old stream grew to what they are, and yet I look at you as the likeness of one now gone
- It is not that I single out the autumn dusk for sorrow, and yet upon these sleeves, as I gaze, the dew comes falling astray