On which of the roads
among the clouds shall I too
lose my way and go—
and it shames me to think that
the moon may be watching me
- Meaning
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On which road through the clouds shall I lose my own way? And it shames me that the moon may be watching.
- Commentary
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Part One: Suma
On a winter night the moon shone in so brightly that it reached the innermost corner of the makeshift house—a place so roughly built that the deep night sky could be seen from where he lay. Watching the moon sink westward, he murmured a line of Chinese verse and then spoke this poem. Afterward, lying awake until dawn, he heard the plovers calling.
"Kumoji" is a road among the clouds, the moon's path and also, by implication, the way a soul goes after death. "Mayoinamu" supposes that he will lose his way. "It shames me that the moon may see" reverses the vantage from one who looks at the moon to one the moon looks at. Behind it lies the Buddhist association of the westering moon with the Pure Land, and the poem states how unsettled his own course is.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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