How long can it last,
this while in which it stays on
without vanishing—
no more than a lotus dew
that happens to have settled
- Meaning
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How long can it last, this while in which it stays without vanishing? It is no more than a lotus dew that happens to have settled there.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Wakana Ge
Murasaki no Ue had revived, but she did not fully recover. When the Fifth Month had passed and she seemed a little better than before, the lotuses came into flower across the pond at the Nijo residence, and dew stood like beads on the green of the leaves. Genji had her rise to see it, and for the first time in a long while the two of them looked out at the garden together. She spoke this poem, and he answered at once. Her wish to take vows was not granted, and the illness went on dragging after her for a long time yet.
"Stays on without vanishing" is dew that has not yet gone, and she lays her own life over it directly. "How long can it last" is a rhetorical question meaning almost no time at all. "Happens to have settled" carries in its sound both the bead of the dew and the word for a soul. "Lotus dew" is the dew on a lotus leaf, and the flower belongs as well to the Buddhist paradise. To take the scene in front of her exactly as it is and use it for her own life is entirely characteristic of her in these months after the illness.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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