Going out and now
coming back, these tears of mine
that will not be dammed—
do people take them for the
spring that never runs dry here?
- Meaning
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Going down and coming back, these tears that cannot be dammed—do people take them for the spring at the barrier that never runs dry?
- Commentary
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Part One: Sekiya
The Hitachi Governor's term ended, and Utsusemi set out for the capital with her husband. On the day their party reached the Osaka barrier, Genji was on his way to Ishiyama to give thanks for prayers granted. Their carriages were drawn aside on the hill to let his train pass, and among the mixed autumn colors and frost-killed grass of the last day of the ninth month his people waited among the cedars. With his blind down, Genji called for her brother, once the boy Kogimi and now a Guards Lieutenant, and had him say that she must not forget he had come as far as the barrier to meet her. Hearing it, she spoke this poem within herself.
"Going and coming" is her journey down to Hitachi and this return. "Cannot be dammed" carries the word for the barrier. "The spring that never dries" is the famous spring at Osaka, laid over tears that do not end. Tears no one can see are figured as a landmark on the road, and the poem's place in the tale is that it is spoken alone and never reaches him.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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