I had thought these hills
a place where not even the
voice of a bird comes,
and yet the bitterness of
the world has sought me out here

Meaning

I had thought these hills a place where not even a bird's voice comes, and yet the bitterness of the world has sought me out here.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Oigimi's reply. She had supposed that at Uji, far from other people, she would be free of the world's troubles, and finds that she is not. Calling his suit itself "the bitterness of the world," she makes her refusal plain.

　"Hills where not even a bird's voice comes" is the set way of speaking of mountains no one enters, and answers the voices of his poem. Yo no uki koto is the vexation of dealings between men and women. She pulls his graceful manner straight back into hard fact, and her resolve to keep her father's charge is concentrated in the short poem.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

On the cord of tears so fragile that they will not stay strung upon it, how should I ever tie down a bond that is meant to last
In the many voices by which one comes to know how a hill village feels, all of it is gathered up into this one growing light
I would put it to the lady of the mountain, who dyed one same branch in two colours: which of them is it that she made the deeper
What is in the mind of the lady who dyes them I cannot make out, yet surely it is the one that changes that goes deeper

I had thought these hills a place where not even the voice of a bird comes, and yet the bitterness of the world has sought me out here

I had thought these hills
a place where not even the
voice of a bird comes,
and yet the bitterness of
the world has sought me out here