袖触れし人こそ見えね花の香の
それかと匂ふ春のあけぼの
それかと匂ふ春のあけぼの
- Roma-ji
-
Sode fureshi hito koso miene hana no ka no
sore ka to niou haru no akebono - English Translation
-
The one whose sleeve brushed
mine is nowhere to be seen,
and yet the scent of
the blossom breathes as though it
were his, this spring daybreak
- Meaning
- The one whose sleeve brushed mine is nowhere to be seen, and yet the scent of the blossom breathes as though it were his, in the spring daybreak.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Tenarai
At daybreak in spring, catching the scent of the red plum in the garden, Ukifune set this down in her brush practice. The fragrance that came of itself from Kaoru's body, on the nights at Uji, had risen again in her mind. Even after her vows the past returns at such moments. Directly afterward she hears news of Kaoru from the Governor of Kii, who calls at the house, and it shakes her badly.
"The one whose sleeve brushed mine" is a person whose scent has passed into one's clothes, that is, Kaoru. To be reminded of someone by the smell of plum is a device as old as the Kokinshu, and the flower's scent and the man's are laid over each other. Since Kaoru's very name means fragrance, the device works for him as for no one else. The figure of a scent that remains where the person is gone catches exactly how the lost past reaches her.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Genji Monogatari
- Other
-
- Gathering and prizing the young herbs from between the snows of this hill place, I find I still put my trust in the growing years ahead
- From this time onward I shall gather them for you, year after year: these young herbs of the fields, where the snow is lying deep upon them
- On the water, where not even his shadow stays, my tears fall and add themselves, and less than ever can I dam them back again
- Though this body has changed into a nun's habit, shall I lay hold of a sleeve, and remember by it the world that once was mine