Through autumn on autumn
the cold rains have fallen, and I,
a villager grown old,
have never in all that time
seen maples such as these
- Meaning
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Through autumn on autumn the cold rains have fallen, and I, a villager grown old, have never seen maples such as these.
- Commentary
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Part One: Fujiura
The evening wind spread maple leaves across a garden one might have taken for the brocade of the galleries, and the well-born page boys danced and withdrew into the shade of the maples. As the light failed—too soon—the music of the hall began, and kotos were called for. The unchanged tone of "the Priest of Uda," Emperor Uda's own instrument, Retired Emperor Suzaku heard with rare and deep feeling; he must have heard it in his reigning days. Thinking of the past, and with a wistful air, he made this poem.
"Through autumn on autumn" is having passed many autumns. "Furinuru" plays the falling of the cold rain against growing old. "The villager" is Suzaku himself, retired from the throne and away from the palace. "I have never seen maples such as these" is his lament. It is praise—there was no such gathering even in his reign—and at once the loneliness of one become a man of the past, and something like envy of the Rokujo splendor: a mingled feeling. The pivot of falling and aging draws the streaming rain and his own decline into one, and lays over the brilliant progress the quiet shadow of one who is passing from the scene.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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