The very sky where
the one I knew has turned to
rain and gone from us
is darkened over the more
by these showers, this season
- Meaning
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The very sky into which the one I knew has turned to rain is darkened all the more by these showers now.
- Commentary
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Part One: Aoi
Genji answered the Captain's poem with this one. The depth of feeling in it was plain to see, and the Captain understood that a man who had never seemed much attached had in fact valued his sister greatly. His own sense of loss grew keener. Afterward Genji had a pink picked from the withered garden and sent it to Omiya.
"The one I knew" is Aoi no Ue. "Turned to rain" takes up the Captain's own words, keeping the etiquette of exchange. "Kumoi," the sky, also runs on from Genji's earlier poem. "Kakikurasu" is both a sky going wholly dark and a heart closed up with grief. Rather than answer the question, he paints the same scene darker still, and that in itself shows a man in no state to be comforted.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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