Into the dark sky
before dawn let this wretched
body vanish now,
so that it may be seen as
a dream, and so be over

Meaning

Let this wretched body vanish into the dark sky before dawn, so that it may be taken for a dream and be over with.

Commentary

Part Two: Wakana Ge

　The Third Princess answered Kashiwagi's poem with this one. She had been asleep, taking the man beside her for Genji, and passed the night without fully grasping what had happened. There is neither pleasure nor reproach in the reply, only the wish that she might cease to exist. Kashiwagi went away and was eaten by guilt; she shut herself up in fear of what others might see. In time she was with child, and what the two of them had done came to Genji's knowledge.

　"The dark before dawn" takes up his own phrase, so the etiquette of the exchange is kept. "This wretched body" is her own life felt as a burden. "Let it vanish" is a wish directed outward, at whatever might grant it. "Taken for a dream and be over with" is to have it end as something that never happened. The poem is written out of the single wish to undo a fact, and the absence of any craft in it is exactly what conveys the shock she has taken.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Into the dark sky before dawn let this wretched body vanish now, so that it may be seen as a dream, and so be over

Into the dark sky
before dawn let this wretched
body vanish now,
so that it may be seen as
a dream, and so be over