古川の杉のもとだち知らねども
過ぎにし人によそへてぞ見る
過ぎにし人によそへてぞ見る
- Roma-ji
-
Furukawa no sugi no motodachi shiranedomo
suginishi hito ni yosoete zo miru - English Translation
-
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
- Meaning
- I do not know how the cedars by the old stream grew to what they are, and yet I look on you as the likeness of one now gone.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Tenarai
The nun's reply. She does not know where the girl came from, she says frankly, but she looks at her as standing in her dead daughter's place. She had come to love Ukifune deeply as that likeness, and it was this that made her wish for the match with the Captain. Soon after, while she was away at Hatsuse, Ukifune took her vows.
Motodachi is the way a tree has grown, and carries the sense of a person's origins, which she does not know. "One now gone" is her dead daughter, with sugi, gone by, playing on sugi, the cedar. She takes over the two cedars of the other poem and turns a refusal into a statement of affection, which shows the old nun's nature exactly.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Prev Poem
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Hakanakute yo ni Furukawa no uki se ni wa
tazune mo yukaji futamoto no sugi - Next Poem
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Kokoro ni wa aki no yūbe o wakanedomo
nagamuru sode ni tsuyu zo midaruru