Come out at last to
this shore that is worth the shells
of a long old age,
who would find fault with the fisher
whose sleeves are wet with brine

Meaning

Come out at last onto a shore that has made a long life worth living, who would find fault with an old fisher whose sleeves are wet with brine?

Commentary

Part Two: Wakana Jo

　The Akashi Consort, then at the palace, was with child, and as her time drew near she moved to the winter wing of the Rokujo residence. That was where her true mother, the Akashi lady, lived, and there the Consort met her grandmother, the Akashi nun, for the first time. Facing her granddaughter in all her dignity, the nun spoke of the years at Akashi and of how the Consort had come to be born, and could not hold back her tears. This poem was spoken then, and the Consort and the Akashi lady each added one, so that the three of them sang in turn. The Consort understood her own origins for the first time, and wept.

　"The waves of age" lays the wrinkles of old age over waves coming in. "The shore worth the shells" puns shells against worth, making a place where a life has been worth living. "Wet with brine" is being wet with seawater, and so with tears; "fisher" sounds the word for a nun and means herself. Waves, shells, shore, brine, fisher—the vocabulary of the Akashi coast runs through the whole, and an old woman's joy at living to see her granddaughter's rise is said entirely in the words of the seaside where she spent her life.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Come out at last to this shore that is worth the shells of a long old age, who would find fault with the fisher whose sleeves are wet with brine

Come out at last to
this shore that is worth the shells
of a long old age,
who would find fault with the fisher
whose sleeves are wet with brine