To a house whose own
mistress, who planted and watched
the flowers, is gone,
the warbler comes and settles
with no knowledge in its face

Meaning

To a house whose mistress, who planted these flowers and watched them, is gone, the warbler comes and settles with no knowledge in its face.

Commentary

Part Two: Maboroshi

　In the Second Month the trees Murasaki no Ue had planted with her own hands came into flower at the Nijo residence, and the warblers began. Genji walked in that garden with the small Prince Niou and remembered how she had cared for this cherry. Hearing the bird sing as though nothing had happened, he spoke this poem to himself. Afterward he set his mind more firmly on taking vows and began putting his household in order. The thought that the garden and the house would in time be left to go wild carries into the poem that follows.

　"The mistress who planted and watched the flowers" is Murasaki no Ue. "A house whose own mistress is gone" is a place without the person who made it. "With no knowledge in its face" is looking as if one knew nothing. Nature comes round unchanged and only the person is missing; setting an unwitting bird in the middle of it makes the loss stand out the more. Among the tale's poems of mourning this is one of the plainest.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

To a house whose own mistress, who planted and watched the flowers, is gone, the warbler comes and settles with no knowledge in its face

To a house whose own
mistress, who planted and watched
the flowers, is gone,
the warbler comes and settles
with no knowledge in its face