#90 広津柳浪「残菊」
茲にお話いたす昔語。世の中に心細いと云ふて其時の様な事はなく、悲しさ名残惜しさも、また之に勝るものはありますまい。
Vocabulary:
広津柳浪 ひろつりゅうろう Hirotsu Ryuro (author, 1861-1928)
茲に ここに here (archaic)
昔語 むかしがたり old story, tale of the past (archaic; now 昔話)
心細い こころぼそい hopeless, disheartening
其時 そのとき at that time, in those days
悲しさ かなしさ sadness, sorrow
名残惜しさ なごりおしさ mournfulness
之 これ this (now usually in hiragana)
勝る まさる to exceed, to surpass
Translation:
In what follows, I will tell you a story of the past. There is nothing in this world as disheartening as what happened at that time, nor, surely, is there anything more sad or mournful.
Grammar:
茲に、之、其
茲に means “here” (or sometimes “in this case” or “at this time”), but often functions as an interjection, a way of drawing the attention of the reader. 之 is simply one of the ways in which to write これ in kanji, as is the case with 其 (or sometimes 其の) for その. This type of orthography, in addition to the structure of the sentences themselves, are all tells that the author has a deep knowledge of, and is influenced by, classical Chinese texts.
云ふて
This is the -て form of the verb 云ふ. The okurigana ふ is prewar kana usage (旧仮名遣い), which today we would write as う → 云う. Finally, 云う is simply a different way of writing 言う. In prewar kana usage, we see examples of the -て form written, not just as 云って or 云つて, but also as 云ふて. However, this type of usage is limited and has not persisted in modern Japanese, with the exception of the verb 問う, whose -て form is 問うて (問って does not exist!).
~まい
This suffix follows the rentaikei form of the verb. In this case, it means something like “surely not”. It is slightly formal, but still in use today, and therefore worth remembering. A less formal way of expressing the same thing would be ないだろう.
Amazon.jp link for the book I used:
The grammar comments are a nice addition, and very helpful.