Thinking of the child
as kin to that dew which wets
the sleeve you speak of,
I find the yamato pink
is not one I can put off
- Meaning
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Even thinking of it as kin to the dew that wets the sleeve, I find this yamato pink is not a thing I can turn away from.
- Commentary
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Part One: Momiji no Ga
Fujitsubo answered Genji's poem with this one. The child's very existence was the proof of what they had done, and tenderness and terror pressed on her at once. Even writing a reply was dangerous in her position, and yet she sent this single poem. Afterward she avoided any meeting with him more strictly than before, and in the seventh month she was raised to Empress.
"Kin to the dew" takes up his "dewiness" and means the connection that causes those tears—that is, her bond with Genji. "Yamato pink" is the native pink, taking his "pink" and returning it as the exchange required. Depending on whether the final particle is read as a negative or as a completive, the line means either that she cannot find the child hateful or that she does find it so. That it can be read both ways is itself the truest expression of this mother's divided heart.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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