Think, then, of a heart
that spends its days in the dark
on this side and that,
if you go astray upon
a road no one sent you down

Meaning

Think of a heart that spends its days in the dark on this side and that, if you go astray on a road no one sent you down.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Oigimi's reply. She asks him to consider her own state of mind, troubled by what has come of giving her sister to Niou. Refusing his suit, she still says plainly how she fears for the younger, and her difficult position is clear.

　Katagata ni is on this side and that, in several directions. Kurasu is to pass one's days brooding, with kurasu, to darken, sounding through it in answer to his half dark. Hitoyari narazu is of one's own doing, not another's. If he has lost his way, she says quietly, it is by a road he chose himself.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

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
Do you take it for an ordinary matter— that I made my way parting the bamboo grass on a road so deep in the dew
Though I do not say that we have worn the night robe until it grew soft, surely I am not without the right to a grievance

Think, then, of a heart that spends its days in the dark on this side and that, if you go astray upon a road no one sent you down

Think, then, of a heart
that spends its days in the dark
on this side and that,
if you go astray upon
a road no one sent you down