How is it that you
fell behind the fisher's boat?
You were the one who
went out fishing, after all,
there at the shore of Akashi
- Meaning
-
How is it that you fell behind the fisher's boat? You were the one, after all, who went out fishing at the shore of Akashi.
- Commentary
-
Part Two: Wakana Ge
Oborozukiyo answered Genji's poem with this one. She notes that it is she who has gone first, and against his talk of weeping at Suma she asks what he was doing at Akashi, where he found another woman. The wit has not dulled in all the years, and it makes a fitting last exchange between them. Genji showed the letter to Murasaki no Ue as well, to make plain that this tie was now entirely broken. The tale then moves on to Suzaku's fiftieth-year celebration and to Kashiwagi's decline.
"The fisher's boat" is a boat that goes out to fish, and "fisher" sounds "nun," so that taking vows is put as boarding a boat. "Fell behind" is being second, and it refers to which of them left the world first. "Went out fishing" is casting for a catch, and it points quietly to his taking the Akashi lady during those years. She receives every one of his seaside words and then casts doubt on the claim about Suma itself. Among the poems she gives him, this is one of the sharpest.
- Author
-
Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
-
Genji Monogatari
- Other
-