Though you leave behind
for me a bitterness that
lasts through lives to come,
know at the same time that your
own heart is a faithless thing
- Meaning
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Though you leave me a bitterness that lasts through lives to come, know also how faithless your own heart is.
- Commentary
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Part One: Sakaki
Fujitsubo answered him with this poem, sighing as she spoke. To a man declaring grief that would run into other lives, she replies that it is his own heart that cannot be counted on. It was said as a way of getting free of him, but Genji could make no answer and withdrew barely knowing himself. From this point she began to resolve on taking vows.
"The long world" answers his "lives to come." "Leaving a bitterness with someone" is laying that bitterness on her. "Ada" is faithless, changeable—so she attacks at the root the claim that his feeling will hold through lifetimes. Cornered as she is, she puts her finger exactly on the weak point of his argument, and the strength of her reasoning shows.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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