The thought of hewing
firewood begins today,
and the Law we pray
for in this world of ours runs
far off into the distance
- Meaning
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The thought of hewing firewood begins only today, and the Law we pray for in this world runs far off into the distance.
- Commentary
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Part Two: Minori
The Akashi lady answered Murasaki no Ue's poem with this one. Against a poem about a life ending, she says that devotion begins today and will go on for a long time, and so encourages her with a wish for long life. The Akashi lady had entrusted her own daughter, the Akashi Empress, to Murasaki to be raised, and over many years what lay between the two women had grown peaceable. But Murasaki's foreboding was right: this was the last time they met.
"Hewing firewood" takes up her firewood and rests on the sutra's account of gathering wood and drawing water in the service of the Way. The word for thought contains the syllable for fire, so it belongs with the wood. "The Law we pray for in this world" is the teaching sought in this life. "Far off into the distance" is what stretches on and on. Where the first poem was about an ending, this one is about a beginning and a continuance—well made, as a poem of consolation should be.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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