Do not chide me for
the drops upon my sleeve that
show at last today,
when the hand that wrung them secretly
at length has slackened its grip
- Meaning
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Do not chide me for the drops on my sleeve that show at last today, now the hand that secretly wrung them has slackened its hold.
- Commentary
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Part One: Fujiura
This is Yugiri's morning-after letter. It came with the same care he had used while they were still hiding, and Kumoinokari, after so short a night, could not answer at once. As the sharp-tongued older women nudged one another over it, the Minister came in and read it—which was most awkward. The letter said that her long coldness had made him feel his own unworthiness the more, and that he could scarcely bear it; and it held this poem. "How well he has learned to write," the Minister laughed—and there was no trace now of the old grudge.
"Do not chide me" is: do not reproach me. "Secretly wrung" is wringing a sleeve wet with tears kept from sight—the tears shed in hiding all these years. "The hand has slackened" is: the hand that wrung the sleeve has loosened. "The drops that show at last today" are the long-hidden tears breaking into the open now that the marriage is publicly allowed. The tears held back so long overflow today as tears of joy, and he begs her not to reproach them: rare for a morning-after poem, the theme of weeping turns from endurance to release. The relief of being married at last, and the weight of all the years, are gathered into a single drop on the sleeve.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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