Though the leaf-guarding
god may no longer dwell in
the oak, is this a
treetop at our house that should
be made familiar with men

Meaning

Though the leaf-guarding god may no longer dwell in the oak, is this a treetop of ours that should be made familiar with any man?

Commentary

Part Two: Kashiwagi

　The gentlewoman Shosho no Kimi answered Yugiri's poem for the Fallen Leaf Princess. The god of the oak, that is her dead husband, may indeed be gone; but that is no reason, she says plainly, to let anyone come near the tree. Yugiri did not withdraw, and his visits to the Ichijo residence went on. The chapter takes its name from the first words of this poem. What lies between the two of them opens out in earnest in the thirty-ninth chapter.

　The oak is the tree in which the leaf-guarding god is said to live, and it stands for Kashiwagi himself. "May no longer dwell" is an honorific negative. "Made familiar with men" takes up his own verb and gives it back. "Treetop at our house" is the branch in this garden. She receives his tree and his god unchanged and turns them over: precisely because the god is gone, the tree must be guarded. Written for another, the reply is still exact and quick.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Though the leaf-guarding god may no longer dwell in the oak, is this a treetop at our house that should be made familiar with men

Though the leaf-guarding
god may no longer dwell in
the oak, is this a
treetop at our house that should
be made familiar with men