Must I alone stand
as the example of one
who has known this hard
world, and let the name of these
sleeves, wet again, rot away
- Meaning
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Must I alone stand as the example of one who has known this hard world, and let the name of these sleeves, wet all over again, rot away?
- Commentary
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Part Two: Yugiri
As the night wore on, the wind, the insects, the belling of a deer and the sound of the waterfall all ran together. Yugiri came inside the blinds, took hold of her sleeve, and pressed on her what he had felt for years. She had learned how hard the world could be in her marriage to Kashiwagi, and now she was to be talked about as well. She spoke this poem then. He answered and would not withdraw; she drew back into the innermost room and went on refusing.
"Must I alone" carries a rhetorical question. "One who has known this hard world" is a woman whose marriage went badly, that is, her years with Kashiwagi. "These sleeves, wet again" are sleeves the more soaked with weeping. "Let the name rot" is to lose one's reputation, and the verb works for both cloth wearing through and a name falling apart. One word for sleeve is made to carry tears and public talk at once; and that the poem is about ruin rather than refusal shows exactly where she stands.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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