Everyone is bent
on setting out, on cutting
cloth for the sleeve's edge—
and here, alone, is a nun
who lets the salt drops fall down

Meaning

Everyone is bent on setting out, on cutting the cloth of their sleeves, and here alone is a nun letting the salt drops fall.

Commentary

Part Three: Sawarabi

　On the day of the removal the gentlewomen at the villa were busy with preparations for the journey to the capital, cutting and sewing their robes. Ben the nun alone had been settled to stay at Uji. This is the poem she offered to Naka no Kimi. Naka no Kimi answered and comforted her, and then set out for the capital, leaving the old woman behind. From then on Ben, remaining at Uji, takes on the important office of go-between who will bring Kaoru and Ukifune together.

　The poem is built on a run of double meanings. Tatsu is both tatsu, to set out, and tatsu, to cut cloth; ura is both a bay and ura, the lining; and ama is both a fisher and ama, a nun. Ura and tatsu belong with sode, sleeve, and moshio and ama belong with ura, so that the busy indoor scene and the figure of a salt-burner on the shore rise up together. It looks like word-play, and yet the loneliness of one being left behind is set solidly at its centre.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Everyone is bent on setting out, on cutting cloth for the sleeve's edge— and here, alone, is a nun who lets the salt drops fall down

Everyone is bent
on setting out, on cutting
cloth for the sleeve's edge—
and here, alone, is a nun
who lets the salt drops fall down