Kiritsubo 1

17.1 いづれの御時にか

A verb like ありけむ is omitted here. This に is the RY of the copula, resulting from the so-called "clefted copula" -- that is, なる -> にある. In contrast to other monogatari which begin in the distant past with a word like むかし, the Genji immediately situates the action in an Emperor's reign, and subsequent passages will establish that the reign is a fairly recent one.

The reading of 御 has been a point of difficulty for some time. Most scholars seem to agree that the readings of ご, お, and み are limited to specific words. Alexander Vovin accepts み as the default reading, but his study was done on texts other than Genji. There are two basic theories as to how to read the character otherwise. The most widely accepted seems to be that unless specified otherwise, it should be read as おほん. A minority opinion (expressed by scholars like Suzuki Kazuo) is that the reading おほん is limited to the Emperor, Crown Prince, Empress, and other figures of high royalty. The default is おん, in other cases.

女御、更衣

Multiple subjects for a single verb (さぶらふ here) can be listed with no particle between them. The translations "Consort" and "Intimate" are from Tyler. Consorts are the highest ranking of the Emperor's women (other than the Empress), and the Intimates rank below the Consorts.

さぶらひ

The word さぶらひ can literally mean "serve" but it can also just be a polite "be" verb; either meaning works here since the women are literally serving the Emperor.

17.2 給ひける

The auxiliary たまふ, extremely frequent in the Genji, is an honorific that establishes the contast presence of a narrator voice -- someone lower ranking than these women serving the Emperor, even the lower ranking Intimates. The use of RT forms in this sentence is typical in the tale -- 女御更衣あまたさぶらひ給ひける forms a nominalized (noun) phrase representing the group of women serving the Emperor. This noun phrase can then modify 中 to represent "within this group." The two remaining noun phrases headed by あらぬ and 給ふ work in the same grammatical fashion.

いと

This word means "very," but paired with a negative verb as in this case, it means "not particularly..."

やむごとなき

17.3 あらぬが

The が particle in the Genji does not mean "but." There are two ways of interpreting it here: (1) It is a subject marker, making the sentence XがY, showing that NP X is also NP Y. (2) It is a conjunction meaning "and," connecting two clauses. The difference between the two is small and is difficult to represent in an English translation.

時めき

Note that the subject of this verb is Kiritsubo, not the Emperor. Although it means that Kiritsubo was loved by the Emperor, this meaning is expressed in a roundabout way that makes Kiritsubo the subject of 時めき. The Koujien defines the word as よい時機にあって栄える; the most obvious way for a Consort or Intimate to "thrive" is to receive the Emperor's love.