Now, at this late day,
what occasion could there be
for the young bamboo
to go seeking out the root
from which it first came up?

Meaning

Now, at this late day, what occasion could there be for the young bamboo to go seeking the root from which it first came up?

Commentary

Part One: Kocho

　This is her reply. She came forward on her knees and added that to do so would only be awkward. Genji thought her touching; and yet she had not in fact given the matter up. He wondered uneasily when she would try to make herself known to her father; but she, for her part, felt that Genji's care for her was beyond anything, and that even a father, if she had not grown up under his eye, could hardly be so attentive—for as she read the old tales she was learning how people are and how the world goes—and so she thought it would be hard to declare herself.

　"The root from which the young bamboo first came up" is her true father, the Minister of the Center. "Seek out" is to go looking for. Genji's poem had lamented that the shoot he raised would be married away; she takes it to mean that she would go off to her father, and answers that she will not. It looks like crossed purposes, but she has no notion whatever of his feeling, and is not being coy. Her handling of the bamboo imagery is perfectly competent; only the thing that matters fails to reach her—and there lies both the comedy of the exchange and its danger.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Now, at this late day, what occasion could there be for the young bamboo to go seeking out the root from which it first came up?

Now, at this late day,
what occasion could there be
for the young bamboo
to go seeking out the root
from which it first came up?