To keep the cherry
from scattering its colors
far and wide abroad
is there a sleeve in the world
wide enough to cover them
- Meaning
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To keep the cherry from scattering its colors far and wide, is there any sleeve in the world wide enough to cover them?
- Commentary
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Part Three: Takekawa
Nareki, a girl in the service of the elder sister, who had lost, answered the girl of the winning side with this, and then added that the others seemed rather small-minded about it. The six poems on the cherry end here, and the tale moves on to Tamakazura's worrying over her daughters' futures.
The poem takes up the Gosenshu poem wishing for a sleeve wide enough to cover the sky and keep the spring flowers from the wind, and denies that any such sleeve exists. No one can keep the scattering flowers to herself; some will drift over to us as well. She makes the other girl's flat claim the target of her reply, and with the remark about small-mindedness that follows, the exchange has all the bluntness of one child answering another. The sequence that began with a game of go played for a cherry tree closes with this poem.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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