Because the wet robe
of a fisher of Matsushima
has been worn soft, would
you raise the name of one who
has changed it for another

Meaning

Because a fisher's wet robe at Matsushima has been worn soft, would you have it said that you changed it for another?

Commentary

Part Two: Yugiri

　Yugiri answered Kumoinokari's poem with this one. Long married as they are, he asks, is she to let it be said that she left her husband and took vows?—checking a wife who has raised the possibility. It was not enough to cool her anger. The morning after he stayed the night with the Fallen Leaf Princess, Kumoinokari took the small children and went home to her father. He went to fetch her and she would not receive him, and there the marriage broke.

　"A fisher's wet robe at Matsushima" takes up her place-name and her fisher, and "wet robe" also carries a rumor one has not earned. "Worn soft" repeats her own verb. "Changed it for another" is putting on a nun's habit instead. "Raise the name" is to set people talking. Receiving every word she used and then shifting the whole matter to how it will look: his persuasion always rests on argument, and here as elsewhere.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Because the wet robe of a fisher of Matsushima has been worn soft, would you raise the name of one who has changed it for another

Because the wet robe
of a fisher of Matsushima
has been worn soft, would
you raise the name of one who
has changed it for another