Even in the shade
of the pines of a mountain
village there was no
autumn wind that went into
me so deeply as this one
- Meaning
-
Even in the shade of the pines of the mountain village there was no autumn wind that went so deeply into me as this.
- Commentary
-
Part Three: Yadorigi
On the night Niou was joined to the Sixth Daughter, Naka no Kimi, left behind at the Nijo residence, lay awake until morning. Life in the mountain village at Uji had been precarious, and yet, she says in this poem spoken to herself, it never brought her pain like this. After it Niou's visits grew infrequent, and she came to wish herself back at Uji. It is into that opening in her mind that Kaoru begins to move.
"The shade of the pines of a mountain village" is the life at the Uji villa, poor but spent with her father and her sister. Mi ni shimu aki no kaze is a wind that goes to the bone, and aki, autumn, carries aki, weariness, so that the reproach of a man tired of her is in it. That a woman brought to the capital and supposedly settled should be worse off than she was at Uji is the reversal on which her portrayal in this chapter rests.
- Author
-
Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
-
Genji Monogatari
- Other
-