Even the sound of
an ordinary wind that
passes through the reeds
seems to sink into this one
wretched body of mine, and stay
- Meaning
-
Even the sound of an ordinary wind passing through the reeds sinks, it seems, into this one wretched body of mine and stays there.
- Commentary
-
Part One: Nowaki
In the Eighth Month a violent autumn storm swept the Rokujo estate. The garden plants were laid flat; and Yugiri, coming in the confusion, caught sight by chance of Murasaki and was shaken by her beauty. The next morning Genji took him along on his round of visits to the ladies. Passing from the Empress's quarter straight to the north, he looked in on the winter quarter of the lady of Akashi, where no one resembling a proper steward was to be seen and only the servants moved about among the fallen grasses. The fence with its gentians and morning glories, planted with such care, was strewn about, and the page girls were lifting the stems and looking for what had been lost. Full of a heavy feeling, the lady sat near the veranda, running her hands idly over the koto; but when the outriders called she drew a small cloak down over her soft everyday robes, to mark the proper distance. Genji sat a moment at the edge of the room, said what was required about the storm, and went away again without warmth. Looking after him, she murmured this poem.
"Ohokata ni" is in an ordinary way, as a matter of course. "The wind that passes through the reeds" gives the reeds for herself and the wind for Genji. "This one wretched body" is her own hard lot. On the face of it the poem describes how the wind in the reeds affects one even without a storm; underneath it says that a visit so perfunctory, with no night spent, goes to the heart all the same. The single phrase "in an ordinary way" governs both the scene and the feeling. That it is neither sent nor addressed but let fall as a murmur is exactly this lady's way of living—keeping her place and never pressing.
- Author
-
Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
-
Genji Monogatari
- Other
-