They have all of them
turned their hearts toward the flower
while I alone stray
lost in the darkness that falls
upon a night of springtime
- Meaning
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They have all turned their hearts toward the flower, while I alone stray, lost in the darkness of a spring night.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Takekawa
Stung at having been called a sober man, Kaoru went late in the First Month, when the plums were at their best, to call on the Fujiwara Chamberlain, so as not to be thought a man without feeling. At the middle gate he found someone in the same informal dress; the man tried to slip away, but when Kaoru stopped him it proved to be the Chamberlain Lieutenant, who was forever hovering about the house. They went together to the red plum before the west gallery, and as Kaoru hummed the saibara song of the plum branch his fragrance came before him more plainly than the flower, so that the women threw open the door and struck up beautifully on the wagon. Tamakazura pressed the instrument on him, and wept to say that his touch was like her late father's. The Lieutenant sang one song and the host another, and Kaoru put the robe he was given on his host's shoulders and made his escape. Having watched it all, the Lieutenant thought that if this man came and went here, every heart in the house would go to him, and spoke this poem.
The flower is Kaoru, the one who takes everyone's heart. "Hitori," alone, also carries "hitori," a censer, so that it belongs with the scent that runs through the poem. "The darkness of a spring night" comes from Mitsune's Kokinshu poem about the plum whose color the dark may hide but whose fragrance it cannot, and that scent is laid over Kaoru's own. Built out of plum and perfume, it is a poem of envy: everyone drawn to the fragrance, and himself left in the dark. It is also the first time the Lieutenant's sense of being outdone takes the shape of a poem.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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