If only I might hear
that you had planted
the grass of forgetting—
then I would know
that you had truly thought of me.
- Meaning
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If only I were to hear that you had planted the grass of forgetting, I would at least know that you had been thinking of me.
- Commentary
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Episode Twenty-One: "If I go forth and leave"
There were a man and a woman who loved one another and had no thought of turning their hearts elsewhere, yet over some trifling matter their married life became burdensome.
The woman left the house without telling him where she was going.
This poem is the man’s reply to the poem she sent after some time had passed: "Now that it is so, though one would sow the seeds of the grass of forgetting, would that even this were not left to another’s heart."
After she had gone, the man suffered deep sorrow, yet she sent a poem telling him not to forget her at his own will.
In this reply there is a tone of irony toward the woman, who seems not to consider the man’s feelings.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
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