In this evening mist
that deepens the mountain
village's own sadness,
I find there is no sky at
all for me to set out into
- Meaning
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In this evening mist, which deepens the sadness of a mountain village, I find no sky at all to set out into.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Yugiri
Kashiwagi's widow, the Fallen Leaf Princess, had gone with her mother, the Ichijo lady, to a mountain villa at Ono below Mount Hiei, where the mother, troubled by a spirit and often ill, could receive the rites. Yugiri, who had used his friend's dying charge as cover while his feeling for the Princess grew, came to Ono about the twentieth of the Eighth Month on the excuse of asking after her mother. As the sun went down, mist closed over everything and the cicadas cried without stopping. Saying he could not get home, he spoke this poem to the Princess. She answered at once, and he settled on staying the night.
"Mountain village" is a settlement away from the capital, here the villa at Ono. "Sadness" is the quiet feeling a scene can carry. "Evening mist" is the mist of dusk and is also this man's own name, so that his remaining there is folded in without being said. "No sky to set out into" is having no heart to leave, and the verb of setting out belongs with mist as an associated word. The chapter takes its name from the words of this poem. Asking to stay by way of the landscape, he leaves nothing to chance.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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