In the deepening
dusk, when the wisteria
of my house glows dark—
will you not come and seek out
what remains here of the spring?
- Meaning
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In the dusk, when the wisteria of my house glows dark, will you not come and seek out what remains here of the spring?
- Commentary
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Part One: Fujiura
The Minister of the Center, who had so long refused Yugiri his daughter, saw now that with their love known to all the world it would look ill to marry her elsewhere; and since Yugiri showed no sign of pressing his suit, he came by degrees to feel that he himself should give way. At the memorial service for his mother, the Princess, on the twentieth of the Third Month, he drew Yugiri aside as they were leaving and spoke to him, a first sign of reconciliation. About the first of the Fourth Month the wisteria before his house bloomed with an uncommon beauty, deepening as the light failed, too fine to let pass unmarked; so he held a musical gathering and sent Kashiwagi with word that their last meeting had left him wanting more, and that Yugiri should call if he had leisure. Tied to a splendid wisteria branch was this poem.
"My house" is the Minister's. "The wisteria glowing dark" is the deep color of the flowers, and in that wisteria stands the daughter. "Dusk" is the hour when the purple shows deepest. "What remains of the spring" is the passing season, and in the wisteria that blooms on from late spring into summer lies the sense that no better moment will come. Behind it stands Bai Juyi's line on grieving that spring, held, cannot be kept, while dusk gathers beneath the purple flowers. On its face an invitation to view the flowers, it quietly conveys, through the wisteria for the daughter and the dusk for this very hour, that he consents to the match. The chapter's name comes from the old poem, "the underleaf of the wisteria," that the Minister will presently hum, and this exchange opens its theme.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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