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

Meaning

What is in the mind of the lady who dyes them I cannot make out, yet surely it is the colour that changes that goes deeper.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Oigimi's reply to his poem on the autumn leaves. She says that it is the changing colour that grows deep, hinting that his own heart will in time move to her sister. Her wish to see the younger married to him is plain in the answer.

　She takes his yamahime and "deeper colour" exactly as given and shifts the sense with the single word utsurou, which is both a colour changing and a heart turning elsewhere. Refusing him and recommending her sister are managed at once within one figure of two shades of red.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

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 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
Fencing off the wide field where the maidenflowers have come into bloom, is it with so small a heart that you rope it as your own
The maidenflowers of Asa Field in the deep mist of the morning: only the one who has set his heart on them ever sees

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

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