If the flowers here
at my house were of a hue
like any other,
why should I go on waiting
for you to come as I do
- Meaning
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If the flowers at my house were of no better color than any other, why would I go on waiting for you like this?
- Commentary
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Part One: Hana no En
Past the twentieth of the third month, an archery contest was held at the Minister of the Right's residence, followed by a wisteria banquet. Senior nobles and princes gathered in numbers, and finding Genji absent the Minister thought the occasion the poorer for it. He sent his son, a Lesser Captain of the fourth rank, with an invitation and this poem. Genji dressed with care and went. At that banquet he would meet again the woman of that night.
"The flowers at my house" are the wisteria of his own grounds, and wisteria was also the emblem of his family's prosperity. "Shinabete no" means ordinary, such as anyone might have. If the flowers were common, he says, he would not wait—which is to say that it is precisely because they are not that he waits for his guest: an invitation with pride folded into it. Though he stands opposed to the Minister of the Left's house, he means to receive Genji handsomely, and that stance prepares what follows.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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