Firefly going forth,
if you can pass above
up to the clouded sky,
then tell the wild geese that now
the autumn wind is blowing.
- Meaning
-
O firefly rising into the sky—if you can go even above the clouds, then tell the wild geese that the autumn wind is blowing.
- Commentary
-
Episode Forty-Five: "The firefly going forth"
A daughter of a person of some rank, carefully brought up, wished to speak intimately with a certain man. Unable to express her feelings, she fell into an illness of no clear cause and seemed about to die. She said, "I have thought of him so deeply that I might die, but now it is too late." Her parents overheard this and, weeping, informed the man.
The man hurried to her house, but she had already died.
He went into mourning, and toward the end of the Sixth Month, on very hot days, he had music played at night in remembrance of her. As the night deepened, a slight cool wind began to blow.
The poem was composed when he saw fireflies flying high in the night.
Because of the tale of Su Wu, wild geese are used as a figure for carrying tidings to one who is far away.
In this poem he entrusts a message to the one who has returned to heaven, asking the firefly to bear it upward and the geese to carry the news. He and the young woman were parted by death before they could speak their hearts. The longing to address the soul of the departed is a natural and unfulfilled sorrow.
- Source
-
Ise Monogatari
- Other
-