Let me rise and mix
with the smoke that went up from
that mountain ridge, and
not be made to lean toward
any quarter I never meant

Meaning

Let me rise and mingle with the smoke that went up from that ridge, and never be made to lean toward a quarter I did not choose.

Commentary

Part Two: Yugiri

　Writing on at the Ono villa, the Fallen Leaf Princess thought back to the smoke from the ridge where her mother had been burned. A wish to follow her, and a refusal to be bent to Yugiri's will, come together in this poem. Neither wish was granted. Suzaku forbade her to take vows, and Yugiri pressed ahead with bringing her home. Unable to hold out against everyone urging her, she was dressed in bright robes and taken from the villa.

　"The smoke that went up from that ridge" is the smoke of the pyre, and it means her mother. "Rise and mix with" has rising, which belongs with smoke. "A quarter I never meant" is a direction she never intended to face, that is, toward Yugiri. "Not be made to lean" is a wish not to yield. One image of smoke is made to carry both longing for a mother and a refusal to submit, and the poem shows exactly how cornered she is.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Let me rise and mix with the smoke that went up from that mountain ridge, and not be made to lean toward any quarter I never meant

Let me rise and mix
with the smoke that went up from
that mountain ridge, and
not be made to lean toward
any quarter I never meant