I never went down
to the water, never drew
from it—yet neither
did we agree you should cross
that last river on another
- Meaning
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I never went down to the water and drew from it; and yet we never agreed that you should cross that last river on another man's back.
- Commentary
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Part One: Makibashira
On the very eve of her entry into service as Mistress of the Household, Tamakazura was taken by force by the Commander of the Right, let in by one of her women. Having won so young and lovely a lady, he was beside himself; Genji hid what he felt and received him courteously as a son-in-law. Her true father, the Minister of the Center, welcomed the match, thinking it better than a contest with his other daughter for the Emperor's favor. But the lady herself, tied unwillingly to a blunt man with no feeling for elegance, sank into misery. One day about noon, while the Commander was away, Genji came. She sat up a little, but kept behind her curtain-stand; and he too was formal and distant, and spoke only of ordinary things. As the talk grew warmer he leaned on the armrest and looked in at her; and seeing how thin her face had grown, and how much more touching it made her, he thought bitterly that to have given her to another had been perversity indeed, and made this poem.
"I never went down and drew from it" means that they never became husband and wife. "The crossing river" is the Sanzu, which by the belief of the day a woman crosses on the back of the first man she has known. "Se" plays on "se" of "imose," husband, and on the shallows of a river. We did not marry, he says—but neither did we agree that another should carry you over. Regret and longing run together in it; and the detail of his blowing his nose as he speaks gives the scene its startling immediacy.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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Even to resolve
to forget you is a thing
full of sorrow—how,
oh how am I to manage,
and what am I to do?
-
Even the mallow,
that turns of its own accord
toward the light—does it
ever melt away the frost
that has settled in the morning?
-
Before I must cross
the river of the three fords,
let me somehow be
the foam upon the current
of my own tears, and vanish
-
My heart, no less than
the sky, went astray that night
of the falling snow,
and the one sleeve spread beneath me
lay cold, and colder, alone