Then put it out there,
in that sky where nothing holds—
if what you speak of
is only the smoke that rises
along with the cressets' flame

Meaning

Then put it out in that sky where nothing holds, if what you speak of is only the smoke that rises along with the cressets.

Commentary

Part One: Kagaribi

　This is her reply. Thinking how strange it all was—that a foster father should fall in love with his daughter—she made this poem and said, at a loss, that people would wonder at them. Genji exclaimed at her and went out; and just then, from the eastern wing, came the sound of a flute playing beautifully against a thirteen-stringed koto. Yugiri was at it with his usual companions, he said, and that must be the Captain of the Guards—Kashiwagi—blowing with a good deal of deliberation; and he stopped to listen, and presently called the three of them in to play. Tamakazura listened in secret to the music of the brothers who did not know her for their sister.

　"That sky where nothing holds" is a sky with no direction in it. "Put it out" answers his "flame." "Tayori" is an incidental occasion—and it carries as well the sense that she has come to depend on this house as one depends on a light. "Taguu" is to accompany, to keep close. If it is a fire of love, she says, it is only the smoke that happened to rise with the cressets, so let the sky take it. Where he spoke from feeling, she declines to meet him and takes up only the word for smoke. That she could return so much on the instant, distressed as she was, shows what a poet this lady is.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Then put it out there, in that sky where nothing holds— if what you speak of is only the smoke that rises along with the cressets' flame

Then put it out there,
in that sky where nothing holds—
if what you speak of
is only the smoke that rises
along with the cressets' flame