If it comes to that,
let me be made familiar
as the twinned branches,
saying that the leaf-guarding
god had given me his leave
- Meaning
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If it comes to that, let me be made as familiar as the twinned branches, on the word that the leaf-guarding god had given me his leave.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Kashiwagi
In the Fourth Month Yugiri came again to the Ichijo residence. Deutzia was spilling white over the garden, an oak and a maple had grown together with their branches crossing, and the young leaves were coming into their green. Looking at the oak, Yugiri thought of his dead friend's name, and while making his excuse of the charge laid on him, he quietly put forward what he felt for the Princess herself. This poem was spoken then. She did not answer; the gentlewoman Shosho no Kimi replied for her and turned the offer gently aside.
"If it comes to that" is as much as to say, since matters stand so. "The twinned branches" are boughs that have grown together into one, and the verb also means to become familiar with someone. "The leaf-guarding god" is the spirit that lives in a tree and keeps its leaves, said to dwell in the oak—and here it is the dead Kashiwagi. Finding in the garden a tree that bears his friend's name and then claiming that tree's god has given him leave, Yugiri argues his way closer: the poem shows exactly the kind of reasoning he uses.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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