Beside the frailty
of a flower that withers
before the dew goes,
it is the dew left behind
that is frailer than the rest
- Meaning
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Beside the frailty of a flower that withers before the dew is gone, the dew left behind is frailer still.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Yadorigi
Naka no Kimi's reply to Kaoru's poem on the morning glory. Taking over his figures of dew and flower, she says that the one left behind is frailer than the sister who went first. That year the match between Niou and Yugiri's Sixth Daughter was being settled, and her own position was growing steadily less secure. That insecurity stands in the poem itself.
In his poem the dew was Oigimi and the flower Naka no Kimi; in her reply the two are exchanged, the flower her sister and the dew herself. The reversal, in which the dew that should vanish first is the thing left behind, catches exactly the unsteadiness of the survivor. Naho zo masareru is to exceed all the more, so that the poem is cast as a comparison of degrees of frailty. She answers with the plain feeling of her own situation rather than with any device.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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