That upper dew laid
on the evening face flower,
which I saw as light—
it was nothing but a trick
my eyes played at dusk that day

Meaning

The dew on the evening face flower that I took for light was only a trick of my eyes in the dusk.

Commentary

Part One: Yugao

　To Genji's poem, spoken with his face uncovered, she answered with this one. She takes back her own first poem on the fan, with its "light added by the white dew," and turns it aside lightly: you were not, after all, what I supposed. He read her temper in the answer. But late that night, just after he dreamed of a woman appearing at his pillow, she was seized with pain and died.

　"Uwa tsuyu" is the dew lying on the surface of a flower, taking up the "white dew" of her first poem. "Sorame" means a trick of sight, and she gives the dimness of dusk as her reason. The form is modesty—unsaying a poem that praised too highly—yet the phrase about mistaking the light rings heavily against what comes next. The exchange also pairs deliberately with the one that opened the chapter.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

That upper dew laid on the evening face flower, which I saw as light— it was nothing but a trick my eyes played at dusk that day

That upper dew laid
on the evening face flower,
which I saw as light—
it was nothing but a trick
my eyes played at dusk that day