How can it be that
the warbler, going tree to
tree among blossoms,
singles out no cherry branch
to make its roost for the night
- Meaning
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How can it be that the warbler, moving tree to tree among the blossoms, singles out no cherry to make its roost?
- Commentary
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Part Two: Wakana Jo
Late in the Third Month there was kickball at the Rokujo residence. Kashiwagi was among the players when a Chinese cat bolted out and dragged up a blind, and he found himself looking at the Third Princess behind it. He had long wanted her for himself, and after that glimpse he could no longer hold the feeling down. Riding home afterward in the same carriage as Yugiri, he put this poem lightly to him. Yugiri caught his meaning, answered, and turned the talk aside.
"The warbler going tree to tree among blossoms" is a bird that moves from flower to flower, and it means Genji among his many women. "Cherry" is the one blossom above the rest, the Third Princess. "Singles out" is setting one apart from all others. The complaint—that Genji does not value her—is put entirely into birds and flowers, so that nothing is said outright. Probing while hiding what the glimpse has done to him: Kashiwagi's danger starts moving here.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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