Uki mi yo ni yagate kienaba tazunete mo
kusa no hara o ba towaji to ya omou

English Translation

If this wretched self
should simply fade from the world,
would you, in seeking,
think you would not go to ask
in the grasses of the field

Meaning

If this wretched self were simply to vanish from the world, would you look for me and still not come asking among the grasses of the field?

Commentary

Part One: Hana no En

　The woman answered Genji's poem with this one. Pressed to give her name, she counters by asking whether, if she died without giving it, he would not even come to look for her grave. Genji admired the wit of the reply, but with dawn coming on and no name learned, they exchanged fans and parted. She was the sixth daughter of the Minister of the Right, later known as Oborozukiyo, and that one night would alter the course of Genji's life.

　"The grasses of the field" is an overgrown plain, used for a burial place. In a position where naming herself would mean ruin, she does not refuse outright but recasts the question as one about whether he would seek out her grave—a deft move. She takes the weight of his "bond" and answers it with a question reaching past death, with a sharpness one would not expect of so young a woman. In this single poem her character stands fully formed.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Uki mi yo ni yagate kienaba tazunete mo kusa no hara o ba towaji to ya omou

Uki mi yo ni yagate kienaba tazunete mo
kusa no hara o ba towaji to ya omou