At Takekawa
you hurried lest the night grow
deep about us there
and what manner of feeling
did you leave behind you then
- Meaning
-
At Takekawa you hurried away lest the night grow deep; what manner of feeling did you leave behind you then?
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Takekawa
The Fujiwara Chamberlain answered him with this. It was a very young performance, and he added that everyone had thought ill of him for pleading a rest stop and hurrying off so early. From this exchange Kaoru began coming and going to his room and letting his feeling show, and, as the Chamberlain Lieutenant had feared, the whole household went over to him. The Chamberlain, being a boy still, thought that as a near relative he would like to be intimate with him morning and evening.
He answers "one joint" with "joint" of his own, keeping up the associations of the song. "Not to let the night grow deep" refers to Kaoru's leaving early on the excuse of a rest stop. Asked whether the depth of a heart had been understood, he asks in return what feeling a man could have left behind who went off in such haste. The logic is straightforward but there is little art in it, exactly as the narration says of his youth, and it chimes with the scene in which his mother praises Kaoru's hand and finds fault with her sons'.
- Author
-
Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
-
Genji Monogatari
- Other
-