Hyakunin Isshu #57

[lnhammer]

    When we met by chance,
I couldn't make out whether
    it was my friend
before, ah, the midnight moon
had hidden behind the clouds.

—12 April 2010

Original by Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, granddaughter of Kanasuke (#27), and mother of Daini no Sanmi (#58). As with Izumi (#56), the Shikibu part of her use-name is from a title of her father's; Murasaki is a character in Genji whom medieval commentators creepily read as an authorial self-insert. (The character was named after a violet flower, and the word also means its color -- as a 12-year-old nisei neighbor said with a snicker, "Wasn't there some woman named Purple?") This one's filled with enough ambiguities and word associations, it's hard to grasp the basic meaning -- let alone translate. Following the headnote that it was written after briefly seeing a childhood friend at night, I treat sore to mo ("if it were") / sore tomo ("that friend") as a (double-translated) pivot.


meguri-aite
mishi ya sore to mo
wakanu ma ni
kumogakurenishi
yowa no tsuki kana

---L.