Knowing all the while
that it hides nothing at all,
you have come here in
this thin summer robe, and I
read that thinness as your heart

Meaning

Knowing perfectly well that it conceals nothing, you came here in a thin summer robe—and I take that thinness for your heart.

Commentary

Part One: Momiji no Ga

　Genji answered To no Chujo's poem on the spot with this one. Knowing it would hide nothing, he says, you came here in a thin summer robe—and it is that thinness of feeling that is at fault. Neither with any grievance left against the other, the two went off together in disarray. The next morning the trousers and sash left behind on the spot arrived from the lady, and the exchange over the sash and the torn sleeve followed.

　"Kakurenaki" means impossible to conceal, denying his friend's "wrap away" head-on. "Kitaru" plays wearing a garment against coming to a place, so it means both that he has the thin robe on and that he turned up here. "Usuki" plays the thinness of the cloth against thinness of feeling, so two double meanings sit inside one poem. Where the other man built from associated words, Genji cuts back with puns, and the poem shows the two of them evenly matched.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Knowing all the while that it hides nothing at all, you have come here in this thin summer robe, and I read that thinness as your heart

Knowing all the while
that it hides nothing at all,
you have come here in
this thin summer robe, and I
read that thinness as your heart