ふればかく憂さのみまさる世を知らで
荒れたる庭に積もる初雪
荒れたる庭に積もる初雪
- Roma-ji
-
Fureba kaku usa nomi masaru yo o shirade aretaru niwa ni tsumoru hatsuyuki
- English Translation
-
The longer one lives,
the more one's sorrows grow—
not knowing such a world,
into this ruined garden
the first snow falls and settles
- Meaning
- Knowing nothing of this world, where the longer one lives the more one's sorrows grow, the first snow falls and settles in my overgrown garden.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 661
Headnote: "On a day when the first snow fell, at a time when I had troubles on my mind."
This is the fifth poem of the snow sequence. The first snow falls and settles in an overgrown garden, knowing nothing of a world in which the longer one lives, the more one's sorrows grow. According to the headnote, it was composed on a day the first snow fell, at a time when the poet was troubled in mind.
The author, "Murasaki Shikibu," is Murasaki Shikibu. A daughter of the Governor of Echigo Fujiwara no Tametoki, she served Empress Shōshi and wrote The Tale of Genji.
The scene is a day of first snow, and the place is the overgrown garden of the author's dwelling.
The direct occasion is the falling of the first snow at a time when she was troubled in mind.
In the first line, "fureba kaku," "fure" carries both the snow "falling" and one's "living on" in the world. "Kaku" means "thus."
The second line, "usa nomi masaru," means "only sorrows increase."
The third line, "yo o shirade," means "not knowing such a world," with "de" as a negative conjunctive particle.
The fourth line, "aretaru niwa ni," means "in the garden left overgrown." It is a garden that also shows the desolation of the poet's heart.
The last line, "tsumoru hatsuyuki," closes on a noun, naming the first snow as it settles. The correspondence built on the double meaning of "furu" runs through the whole poem: snow piles up the more it falls, while a person's sorrows pile up the longer she lives in the world. Contrasting the first snow, which settles white knowing nothing, with a self in whom sorrows accumulate, the poem entrusts to the first snow the troubled heart of the headnote. From the sacred fields in winter seclusion in the preceding poem, it moves to first snow piling up in an overgrown garden.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
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- In the falling snow, how must it be, truly, with your bamboo hut? Today in the capital not even a footprint shows
- The first snow falls and the sacred cedars of Furu lie buried deep; the fields bound with sacred ropes have shut themselves in for winter
- On the narrow mat, the sleeves of my robe at midnight grow colder and colder— white lies the first snow on the pines along the hill
- Even this morning, when the snow began to fall, I found myself longing for a visitor— in a deep mountain village the snow at dusk