Wet through with brine, I
find myself weeping first of
all—though the seaweed
glimpsed in passing was no more
than a fisher's idle sport

Meaning

Soaked with brine, I find myself weeping before anything else—though that seaweed glimpsed in passing was only a fisherman's idle amusement.

Commentary

Part One: Akashi

　Unable to keep the matter hidden, Genji confessed it himself in a letter to Murasaki no Ue. The letter, meant to soothe her, admits fault while insisting nothing much has happened, and this poem went with it. She sent back the most direct answer she makes in this chapter.

　"Shioshio" is the drooping of one soaked in tears, with the sound of brine in it. "Karisome" is passing or momentary, playing on the word for cutting. "Mirume" is the seaweed whose name also means eyes that see, hence meeting, a pun used in earlier chapters. "Ama no susabi" is a fisherfolk's diversion, and sounds the word for nun as well. The coastal vocabulary carried from the Suma chapter is turned straight into an excuse for infidelity, and the character of the poem lies in exactly that.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Wet through with brine, I find myself weeping first of all—though the seaweed glimpsed in passing was no more than a fisher's idle sport

Wet through with brine, I
find myself weeping first of
all—though the seaweed
glimpsed in passing was no more
than a fisher's idle sport