Today I have learned
that with the look of a man
gazing at the sky
you had all the while shifted
your heart across to the flower
- Meaning
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Today I have learned that, with the look of a man gazing at the sky, you had all the while moved your heart across to the flower.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Takekawa
Before their mistress the senior gentlewomen were saying how sorry they were for the Lieutenant. Chujo no Omoto in particular reported that when he spoke of life and death it was not mere words but seemed to come from real distress, and their mistress too heard it with pity. His letter came in just then, and while the women were commiserating one of them sent back this poem. Another said that it was too bad of her to treat him as though he were only playing, but she could not be troubled to write it over.
To gaze at the sky is the posture of a man lost in longing, in the manner of the Kokinshu poem asking whether the wide sky is a keepsake of the one we love. Taking up his "looking at blossoms I have lived the spring away," she turns it: while he wore the look of a man watching the sky, his heart had gone over to the flower. It makes light of an earnest plea. The other women were sorry because they knew how far gone he was, and the gap between them and the writer of the reply gives the scene its edge.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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