To my own regret
I plucked it and so sinned—that
blade of hollyhock,
when it was no head-ornament
the god had given me leave for
- Meaning
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To my own regret I plucked it and sinned—that blade of hollyhock, when it was no ornament the god had ever given me leave to wear.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Wakana Ge
Leaving the Third Princess at daybreak, Kashiwagi did not go to his own wife, the Second Princess, but slipped back to his father's house. He was afraid to be seen, and could not sleep when he lay down. The knowledge that he had taken the one woman he must not take pressed harder as the hours went on. He spoke this poem to himself then. From that time he visibly weakened, and before long he could not get up from his bed. The second half of the chapter is the story of how the weight of that one night closes in on everyone.
"Plucked it and so sinned" puns the verb for plucking against the word for sin. The hollyhock is the plant of the Kamo festival, and since the old poems its name has sounded the phrase for a day of meeting; here it is the night with the Princess. A head-ornament is worn in the hair or on the cap, and at a rite only those with the right to it may wear one. "No ornament the god had given me leave for" says outright that the bond was never sanctioned. He borrows the festival to pass sentence on himself, and the poem cuts.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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