The tears that fall from
me in crimson are of no
use to me at all,
since they will not dye the cloth
to the colour of mourning

Meaning

The crimson tears that fall from me are of no use, since they will not dye the cloth to the colour of mourning.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Oigimi died, and Kaoru was sunk in grief. Not having been her husband, he was not entitled to put on mourning. Still in his pale crimson robe, shut out from the rites, he looked at his own tears and spoke this poem. He carried the loss with him for the rest of his life.

　Tears falling crimson are the tears of blood said to come when grief is at its height. Kainashi is to no purpose. Tears of blood would dye a robe red, but what is wanted is the black of mourning, not red, and the lament is made out of that reasoning. The peculiar sharpness of this chapter lies in a grief that custom will not let a man express.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

The plover that shakes the frost of daybreak from its wings and cries aloud— does it know, then, what is in the heart of one who is grieving
In these deep mountains where the sky has clouded over and no sunlight shows, these are days in which I pass the hours with a darkened heart
Not to be left here, I follow with my longing the moon crossing the sky, since this is not a world where one may go on dwelling long
Wanting so to know the drug by which one may die of longing at last, shall I go into the snow of the hills and leave no trace

The tears that fall from me in crimson are of no use to me at all, since they will not dye the cloth to the colour of mourning

The tears that fall from
me in crimson are of no
use to me at all,
since they will not dye the cloth
to the colour of mourning