Though I am not of
the quarter the two who love
each other lean toward,
I shall be the one to go
first, becoming smoke myself
- Meaning
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Though I am not in the quarter the two who love each other drift toward, I shall go first, and be smoke.
- Commentary
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Part One: Miotsukushi
Fearing she would hear it elsewhere and take it wrongly, Genji told Murasaki no Ue that a daughter had been born at Akashi. The talk moved on to the woman herself—the smoke of that last evening, the poem she had sent back, the face he had glimpsed, the fine touch of her koto. Turning her face away, Murasaki no Ue spoke this poem almost to herself, and he answered.
"Omou dochi" is two people who love each other: Genji and Akashi no Kimi. "The quarter they lean toward" takes up his own Akashi poem about the salt-smoke drifting the same way. "To go first as smoke" means dying, with the smoke of the pyre inside it. She lifts the word from the poem he sent another woman and turns the same smoke into her own death, so that the pain of the one who has to listen is shown as technique.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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