Think of you I may,
but you will never know it—
for in water that
wells and seeps between the rocks
there is no color to see
- Meaning
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Think of you I may, but you will never know it—for water that wells and seeps between the rocks shows no color at all.
- Commentary
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Part One: Kocho
In the Fourth Month, with the change of robes, letters came in growing numbers to Tamakazura. Genji, amused to see it going as he had planned, would often come to the west wing to look them over and to urge her to answer where an answer was owed; and she found this hard, and could not be at ease with him. Coming on a letter from the Prince of War full of impatient complaints, he laughed and told her to reply. Even the Commander of the Right, a solemn and ceremonious man, was sighing like one ready to fall on the mountain of love, which Genji found entertaining too; and among the letters he was comparing there was one on Chinese paper of pale blue, deeply perfumed, folded and knotted very small and thin. Asking why this one should be so tightly knotted, he opened it, and found this poem in a fine hand. It was from the Minister of the Center's son, the Captain—Kashiwagi.
"Welling up" is water rising strongly, an associate of the water among rocks. "No color to see" is: it cannot be made out. His love wells hard within him, and yet, like water seeping through stone, shows nothing from without. The pity of it is that he courts her without knowing she is his own sister. She, who did know it came from her brother, had left it unopened; and the tightly knotted paper is called "knotted up," the word standing at once for the letter and for the writer's heart. Genji, who thought highly of the young man's hand and of his character, told Ukon that since the truth would come out in its own time she should put him off without saying anything plain. From this poem Kashiwagi is sometimes called the Captain of the Water among the Rocks.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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