しら露のはかなくをくと見し程に
- Roma-ji
-
Shiratsuyu no hakanaku oku to mishi hodo ni
- English Translation
-
While I only watched
the white dew settle, fleeting,
faint upon the leaves
- Meaning
- While I watched the white dew settle so faintly and fleetingly on the leaves...
- Commentary
-
29 Linked Verse on the Spindle-Tree Leaves
About two days after their exchange about the predawn moon, the prince came quietly to Izumi Shikibu, disguised in what looked like a woman's carriage. She had never yet let him see her by daylight and felt shy, but she could not hide in an unseemly way, nor go on being bashful until he spoke, so she slid forward on her knees. The prince spoke of how long it had been since they had met, lay down for a while, and then said, "Make up your mind soon, as I told you. These secret visits always leave me feeling awkward, yet not coming makes me anxious; in this fleeting world, it is painful." When she replied, "I mean to do whatever you say, but I worry that, as the saying goes, one may see and still grieve," he answered, "Well, try it. Like a salt-burner's robe, we shall grow used to each other," and made ready to leave.
The woman is Izumi Shikibu, daughter of Ōe no Masamune and, as the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, mother of Koshikibu no Naishi. The Prince of the Dazaifu is Prince Atsumichi, fourth son of Emperor Reizei, so called because he served as Governor-General of the Dazaifu.
As he was leaving, the prince noticed a spindle tree by the lattice fence, its leaves just turning, and leaning on the railing he spoke the lower verse "Koto no ha fukaku narinikeru kana." Izumi Shikibu answered by adding this upper verse.
The prince was delighted to find that she did indeed have a feeling heart. The next day a letter came from him saying that her dismayed look the day before had been both painful and touching, and she would reply with "Kazuragi no kami mo sa koso wa omoikeme kumeji ni watasu hashitanaki made."
This upper verse is the first half of a short linked verse that Izumi Shikibu completed by joining it to the prince's lower verse. "White dew," which settles and glitters on grasses and trees, is in waka a symbol of things fleeting and quick to vanish.
The second and third lines mean "while I watched it settle so fleetingly," with a past-tense auxiliary. While she watched the faint dew settle, the leaves of the spindle tree had somehow deepened in color; so she suggests that their love, so fragile at the start, has become deep before they knew it, drawing close to his "leaves of words." Her quick wit in supplying the upper verse on the spot is what delights the prince in this scene.
- Author
- Izumi Shikibu
- Source
- Izumi Shikibu Nikki
- Prev Poem
-
Koto no ha fukaku narinikeru kana
- Next Poem
-
Kazuragi no kami mo sa koso wa omoikeme kumeji ni watasu hashitanaki made