Like the cicada,
I have changed and left behind
that summer garment,
and seeing it returned now
my voice cries out all the same
- Meaning
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The thin summer robe, light as a cicada's wing, belongs to a season already gone—and seeing it sent back, I cannot help crying aloud.
- Commentary
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Part One: Yugao
Utsusemi wrote this on receiving the robe Genji returned. It came back to her just as she was about to leave the capital: the one token of that single night. She had refused him throughout, and here at last she cannot keep back her tears. With this exchange she goes down to Iyo, and the thread between them is broken for a time.
"A cicada's wing" is a figure for a thin summer robe, and it connects with the name Utsusemi itself. "Tachikae" sounds both the cutting of cloth and a turning back, laying the remaking of a garment over the turning of a season. "Kaesu" is the returning of the robe, and repeating the sound presses the gesture of parting. That a woman who refused him by reason throughout should here weep aloud is the point this character has been moving toward.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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