It is a garden
chrysanthemum that withered,
unable to bear
the frost—and yet the colour
left behind has not faded
- Meaning
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It is a garden chrysanthemum that withered, unable to bear the frost, and yet the colour left behind has not faded.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Yadorigi
The Emperor's reply to Kaoru's deference. "The garden chrysanthemum" is the dead Fujitsubo Consort and "the colour left behind" is her daughter, the Second Princess. He says that the loss of the mother has not spoilt the daughter's beauty, and so presses again that there is no need for reserve. From this exchange the match goes forward, and in the Second Month of the following year Kaoru takes the Second Princess as his wife.
The chrysanthemum is the flower held to bloom through frost, so that to say it could not bear the frost marks how unlooked-for the consort's death had been. "The colour left behind" is the colour of the flower that remains, the daughter's beauty in her mother's likeness. Asezu mo aru kana is an exclamation that the colour has not faded, a father's boast of his child. It is a well made reply, taking over the figure of the flower and turning back only the sense.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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