Lost in my own thoughts,
not knowing the months and days
as they went past me—
is it today that the year
and my own life come to an end
- Meaning
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Lost in my own thoughts, not knowing the months and days as they went past—is it today that the year, and my life with it, come to an end?
- Commentary
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Part Two: Maboroshi
The year came to its end, and the demon-expelling rite was performed at Rokujo. Genji watched the small Prince Niou running about the house and thought that he would not see this child grow. The year since her death had gone by in a fog of thinking. He spoke this poem to himself, and it is the last he speaks in his life. After it he vanishes from the text, and the next chapter title, which has no text at all, stands for his death. The tale then leaps eight years and passes to Kaoru and Prince Niou.
"Lost in my own thoughts" is being sunk in them. "Not knowing the months and days as they went past" is losing track of time. "The year and my own life" uses one word for a life and an age. "Come to an end" asks whether today is the day. The last day of the year and the last day of a life are laid on one another—a quiet, large poem, and the right exit for the hero of a fifty-four-chapter tale.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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