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

Meaning

Fencing off the wide field where the maidenflowers bloom, is it with so small a heart that you rope it off as your own?

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Niou teased Kaoru, who talked of Uji and yet would not take him there. The reproach that he was keeping the sisters to himself shows how strong Niou's interest had grown. After this exchange Kaoru resolved to bring him to Uji.

　Ominaeshi, one of the seven autumn grasses, stands for the sisters, women being commonly figured as flowers. The wide field is a place no one could reasonably claim. Shime o yuu is to rope off ground as one's own. The mismatch of a rope around an open field carries the mockery of Kaoru's possessiveness.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

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
The maidenflowers of Asa Field in the deep mist of the morning: only the one who has set his heart on them ever sees
Am I, who served as guide, the one to lose his way coming back again, on this road in the half dark where my heart has not gone through

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

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