Though you promise us
one lotus dwelling with no
wall set between, your
own heart, I think, will never
settle and be clear in it

Meaning

Though you promise us one lotus dwelling with nothing set between, your heart, I think, will never settle there or be clear.

Commentary

Part Two: Suzumushi

　The Third Princess answered Genji's poem with this one. Vow what he likes about a shared lotus, she says, his heart will not come to rest there—she does not take his words at face value. She was a nun now and had no intention of meeting worldly feeling. Afterward Suzaku urged her to move to the Sanjo residence he had made over to her, but Genji, unwilling to let so young a wife go, would not agree. Nothing eased where she was.

　"With no wall set between" is having nothing stand between two people. "One lotus dwelling" takes up his lotus leaf and lotus seat and makes the flower of paradise a house to live in. "Will never settle" is a negative supposition, and the verb also sounds the word for running clear, so that his heart will neither rest nor be pure. She receives his Buddhist vocabulary unchanged and then doubts the vow itself: a short poem with a firm refusal set inside it.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Though you promise us one lotus dwelling with no wall set between, your own heart, I think, will never settle and be clear in it

Though you promise us
one lotus dwelling with no
wall set between, your
own heart, I think, will never
settle and be clear in it