More easily than
the dew on leaves that give way
to the mountain wind,
and for no cause I can name,
these tears of mine break and fall
- Meaning
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More easily than dew on leaves that cannot hold against the mountain wind, and for no reason I can name, my tears break and fall.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Hashihime
For some three years Kaoru had been going to Uji, drawn by the Eighth Prince's way of life. Late in autumn, on a visit when the prince was shut away at a mountain temple, he caught sight through the dawn mist of the two sisters playing the biwa and the so together. Moved by what he saw, and then made to hear from the old gentlewoman Ben what touched on his own birth, he could not hold back his tears, and spoke this poem to himself.
Yamaoroshi is the wind that comes down off the hills, and carries the chill of the Uji mountains. He sets his tears beside the dew shaken from leaves that cannot hold, and calls his own the more fragile of the two. Ayanaku is without cause, without anything one could reason out, and marks tears he cannot account for. The heavy matter of his birth is let quietly into the chapter through so slight a thing as dew.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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