The morning-glory
whose first sight I cannot once
forget—has the bloom,
the fullness of its flower,
now gone by and passed away?
- Meaning
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The morning-glory whose first sight I have never once forgotten—has its flower now passed the height of its bloom, and so, I wonder, have you?
- Commentary
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Part One: Asagao
Coldly received on his visit, Genji went home with the matter unsettled and lay wakeful that night, sunk in thought. Next morning, having the shutters raised as he gazed at the mist, his eye fell on a morning-glory blooming faint and frail among the withered flowers. He had the fading blossom picked and sent it to the lady with this poem. Likening her to the morning-glory he had seen long ago, he asks whether her beauty has faded, and pleads that he still loves her. The chapter's title, "Asagao"—Morning-Glory—comes from this exchange.
"When I first saw" is the time of their meeting long ago. "Once" is the adverb "not in the least," which also plays on "tsuyu," the dew that belongs to the morning-glory. "Cannot forget" is: cannot be forgotten. "The bloom of the morning-glory flower" lays the height of the flower over the height of the lady's beauty. "Has it now passed" is the question: has it already gone by? Setting the lady grown older against the faded morning-glory, the poem entrusts to the flower a longing still unforgotten, and reaches her heart along with the sent blossom.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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While in secret I
waited for the god's release,
here I have passed by
year on heartless year of a
world that would not soften to me
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Even for offering
no more than the world's plain grief,
since I made the vow,
would not the god rise up and
rebuke me for the breaking?
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Autumn at its end,
I cling tangled to the hedge
where the mist hangs low,
and barely there at all, I
fade—this morning-glory flower.
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While was it, that here,
tangled at the mugwort's root,
a village of falling
snow, a fence gone all to ruin—
this home I once knew so well?