Think of this village
waiting for the moon on a
night that will not clear,
even if you do not gaze
with the same heart as we do
- Meaning
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Think of the house that waits for a moon on a night that will not clear—even if you do not watch the sky with the same heart.
- Commentary
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Part One: Suetsumuhana
Days passed with no visit from Genji, and the women urged their mistress to write. At last she took up her brush and set this poem down on old-fashioned purple paper. Genji read it unmoved and simply put it aside. The old-fashioned, awkward quality of her verse only pushed his interest further away.
"A village waiting for the moon on a night that will not clear" is a house waiting for a moon that never rises, standing for herself waiting for a man who does not come. "Even if you do not gaze with the same heart" says she expects nothing of him. She voices no reproach and only asks to be thought of, which is modest enough; but the expression follows old models exactly and has none of the wit then in fashion. It is the poem that best shows how she writes.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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