The smoke of my love,
that rises with the cressets
out there in the dark—
that, surely, is the one flame
this world will never put out
- Meaning
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The smoke of my love that rises with the cressets—that, surely, is the one flame this world will never see put out.
- Commentary
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Part One: Kagaribi
The bad name of the lady of Omi, whom the Minister of the Center had taken in, was now the talk of the world; and hearing it, Tamakazura understood what fortune had come to her in being taken in by Genji instead, and began by degrees to open her heart to him. Autumn came, the first cool wind blew, and Genji, vaguely melancholy and unable to keep away, went often to the west wing, spent whole days there, and taught her the Japanese koto. On the fifth and sixth of the month the evening moon set early behind the hills, the wind through the reeds grew more affecting, and the two of them lay side by side with a koto for a pillow. Sighing that surely no one had ever been in such a case, he let the night grow late; but fearing that people would remark on it he made ready to go, and had his man Ukon no Taifu light the cressets in the garden, which were burning low. In the light kindled under the spindle tree by the stream she was lovely, and, unwilling to leave, he made this poem.
In "koi," the syllable "hi" is also fire, so that the cressets in the garden and the fire of his love are one. "Rises with" is to go up together with the flames, and belongs to the imagery of smoke. "The flame this world will never put out" is a fire that never dies. The words he adds—"and for how long, I wonder"—quote an old poem about the mosquito-smudge burning in a summer house and asking how long the smoldering must go on. When he goes on to say that he is not smoldering, but that the fire beneath is painful, he means that outwardly he keeps his composure while within he burns. Turning a real fire in a real garden into the figure of his longing is the deftness of the poem. The chapter takes its name from this and from the reply that follows.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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