Where snow lies deep on
the bridge across the mountain,
there is not one track
of another treading through—
none, my lord, except your own

Meaning

On the bridge across the snow-deep mountain there is no track of anyone treading through but yours alone.

Commentary

Part Three: Shiigamoto

　Oigimi spoke this to Kaoru when he came to Uji through the snow. He had been probing to learn who wrote the answers to Niou's letters, and she replies that no one comes but him. Kaoru answered with a poem that shows how much further his own feeling had gone.

　Kakehashi is a plank bridge slung across a ravine, and stands for how hard the road to Uji is. In fumikayou, fumi holds both fumu, to tread, and fumi, a letter, so that coming in person and exchanging letters lie over each other. A plain statement of fact serves at once as thanks to him and as a denial about Niou, and the economy of it is characteristic of her.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Since you went from us and the steep path by the rocks fell into disuse, with what mind am I to look on the snow upon the pines
If only I could think of the one who has gone as I think of snow that gathers on the needles of the pines in the deep hills
Over the hill stream shut in ice, which the horse breaks underfoot, shall I, while I am about guiding another, be first to cross?
The foot of the oak I had trusted for the shade I might turn aside to has become, I find now, an empty seat and nothing

Where snow lies deep on the bridge across the mountain, there is not one track of another treading through— none, my lord, except your own

Where snow lies deep on
the bridge across the mountain,
there is not one track
of another treading through—
none, my lord, except your own