The village being
far, I have parted my way
through Ono's bamboo
grass, and I too, like the deer,
do not spare my voice at all
- Meaning
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The village being far, I have come parting my way through the bamboo grass of Ono; and I too, like the deer, do not spare my voice.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Yugiri
Past the tenth of the Ninth Month, when the hills are at their deepest, Yugiri came again to the villa at Ono. The Fallen Leaf Princess, in mourning for her mother, would see no one, and he had to send in word through others. Shosho no Kimi, the gentlewoman caught between them, carried messages back and forth in tears. He spoke this poem to her. She answered, and he set off home again with no word from the Princess.
"The village being far" gives the reason for the journey. "Ono's bamboo grass" is the low, dense growth around the villa. "Parting my way through" is pushing through grass to reach a place. "I too, like the deer" likens him to the animal, and some read a second sense in the word. Laying his own weeping over the belling of deer in an autumn field is an old device, and he uses it to keep the decorum owed to a house in mourning while still saying what he feels.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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