I would gaze after
the way that she has gone now—
so this autumn, mists,
do not stand between me and
the hill of Osaka there
- Meaning
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I would look after the road she has taken; so this autumn, mists, do not stand between me and Osaka hill.
- Commentary
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Part One: Sakaki
On the morning her reply came, looking out into a heavy mist, Genji murmured this poem to himself. He did not go across to the west wing, and spent the day in a loneliness he had brought on himself. The narrative notes that for one out on the road to Ise it must have been harder still, and the first chapter closes there.
"Yukukata" is the direction someone has gone. Osaka is the hill at the boundary with Omi, and since its name contains the word for meeting, it works ironically in a scene of parting. "Do not stand between" addresses the mist directly. A hill named for meeting is used as the place from which to look after someone he cannot meet, and the gap between the name and the fact is the center of the poem.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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