This day of parting
has come round to us again,
but the one I knew—
when may I count on the time
when I shall go and meet her
- Meaning
-
The day we parted has come round again; but when may I count on the time when I shall meet him once more?
- Commentary
-
Part One: Sakaki
Fujitsubo, after the first anniversary of Kiritsubo's death, was making elaborate preparations for a series of lectures on the Lotus Sutra. Around the first of the eleventh month, on the day of the imperial memorial, heavy snow fell, and Genji sent her this poem. It was a day for sadness anywhere, and an answer came. Her writing was not particularly worked over, and the narrator wonders whether its air of nobility is only in the beholder.
"The day of parting" is the anniversary of a death. "The one I knew" is the late Emperor. "To go and meet" carries a reunion in a life to come. The poem turns on the contrast between an anniversary that returns each year and a reunion for which no date can be set: the round of the calendar against a death that happens once.
- Author
-
Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
-
Genji Monogatari
- Other
-