人にまだ折られぬものをたれかこの
すきものぞとは口ならしけむ
すきものぞとは口ならしけむ
- Roma-ji
-
Hito ni mada orarenu mono o tare ka kono sukimono zo to wa kuchinarashikemu
- English Translation
-
Never yet broken
by any hand, this branch of mine—
so who, then, was it
that called me a lover of love
and set it on everyone's lips?
- Meaning
- No one has ever yet broken off my branch, so who could it have been that went about calling me a lover of romance?
- Commentary
-
40 The Exchange on the "Sour Fruit"
Michinaga noticed The Tale of Genji lying before Empress Shōshi and, as usual, fell to joking. He then wrote a poem on the paper spread beneath some plums and handed it to Murasaki.
Michinaga was Empress Shōshi's father and the master of the household Murasaki served. It was known at court that Murasaki had written The Tale of Genji, and Michinaga teased her by alluding to the love affairs depicted in her tale.
Handed Michinaga's poem "Sukimono to na ni shi tatereba miru hito no orade suguru wa araji to zo omou," Murasaki turned the tables with this reply.
After the poem she added "How outrageous!" firmly rebuffing his teasing. Next follows the scene in which someone knocks at her door one night as she sleeps in the gallery, and a poem arrives the following morning.
The opening lines, "though never yet broken by anyone," answer Michinaga's "pass by without breaking off a branch," retorting that no one has yet won her, through an adversative connective.
The lines that follow ask who could have gone about calling her a sukimono, through an interrogative particle answered by an auxiliary of past conjecture. She takes up Michinaga's double meaning of "sukimono" unchanged, and "kuchinarashi," to spread talk about, is said to echo the smacking of lips at a sour plum. Catching each of Michinaga's words in turn, the reply resolutely denies his charge.
- Author
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
- Murasaki Shikibu Nikki
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Sukimono to na ni shi tatereba miru hito no orade suguru wa araji to zo omou
- Next Poem
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Yomosugara kuina yori ke ni nakunaku zo maki no toguchi ni tatakiwabitsuru