While I look at it
I am comforted a while,
though the moon's city,
where I shall meet them again,
lies far off from here indeed
- Meaning
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While I look at it I am comforted a little, though the moon's city, where we are to meet again, lies far away.
- Commentary
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Part One: Suma
Seeing the moon come up brilliantly, Genji remembered that it was the fifteenth night. Longing for the music at court and imagining others gazing at the same moon in the capital, he could look at nothing else. A line of Chinese verse brought tears he could not stop, and the memory of Fujitsubo's poem about the dividing mist made him sob aloud. Told that the night was late, he still would not go in, and spoke this poem.
"Meguriau" plays meeting again against the moon coming round. "The moon's city" is the city said to be on the moon, standing for a capital out of reach. The idea that one moon joins him to the capital has been used again and again in this chapter. He admits the comfort is only temporary and goes on looking all the same, and in that is the shape of his endurance at this period.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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