Even at the wind
that comes hinting through the reeds,
this low reed beneath
is half bound up in the frost
and cannot open itself

Meaning

Even at the wind that hints its meaning, this reed below is half bound up in frost and cannot loosen itself.

Commentary

Part One: Yugao

　Nokiba no Ogi answered Genji's poem with this one. Already another man's wife, she was glad of his letter and yet in no position to respond to it. She entrusts that divided feeling to a reed held fast in frost. Genji read in the answer the openness and youth that mark her, but nothing further came of it.

　"The wind that hints" takes up his "however faintly," carrying the exchange's words forward. "Shita ogi" is the reed of the undergrowth, standing for her own position out of the light. "Musubohore" picks up his "had I never tied" and turns it toward being knotted and unable to come loose—a fine instance of the technique by which an exchange reuses a word and shifts its sense.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Even at the wind that comes hinting through the reeds, this low reed beneath is half bound up in the frost and cannot open itself

Even at the wind
that comes hinting through the reeds,
this low reed beneath
is half bound up in the frost
and cannot open itself