It is not so deep
as to close the road that runs
between the two of us,
and yet it troubles my heart,
this thin snow of the morning
- Meaning
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It is not deep enough to close the road that runs between us, and still it leaves my heart unquiet, this thin snow of the morning.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Wakana Jo
A few days after the Third Princess came to the Rokujo residence, Genji was visiting her as form required. One morning, having gone back to his own rooms through falling snow, he sent her this poem. It is a courteous piece in the manner of the morning-after letter, yet something of his unsettledness at having taken so young a principal wife shows through it. Her answer came, and the hand it was written in was so childish that he was privately disappointed. That disappointment set the distance between them for everything that followed.
"The road between us" is the path a man takes to a woman, and he says the snow is not deep enough to shut it. "Thin snow" is the soft, early-spring fall that vanishes at once. Saying the road is not closed and then that his heart is troubled sets the outward scene slightly at odds with what is inside. For all its care toward a young wife, the poem has already put the word for a road between two people into play, and the distance is there in it.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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