If it were a thing
that one could take in the hand
the wisteria
would I have ever seen the
color that outdoes the pine
- Meaning
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If it were a thing one could take in the hand, would I ever have seen the wisteria's color, that outdoes the pine?
- Commentary
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Part Three: Takekawa
The Retired Emperor kept Kaoru near him morning and evening, and his favor was no less than the old Genji had known in his youth. Kaoru moved easily among all the ladies of the household, and toward the elder sister he behaved as though his goodwill were of the ordinary kind, while inwardly he wondered how she thought of him. One quiet evening, walking with the Fujiwara Chamberlain, he saw wisteria in full flower trailing over a five-needled pine near her rooms. He sat on a stone by the water, with moss for a mat, gazing at it, and while they talked, hinting without saying it that the world had used him hard, he spoke this poem.
The wisteria is the lady, and the flower trailing over the pine stands for her situation. Had it been something one might take in the hand, he asks, would he have had that color, finer than the pine, for his own? It is a way of saying, through the flower, that she was always beyond his reach. Something in the way he looked up at it struck his companion as sad and hard to watch, and the Chamberlain answered by hinting at his own dissatisfaction. Kaoru was never so taken with her as to lose his composure, but he felt the loss.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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