Meaning to break it
for my sovereign's headdress, I
have laid my own sleeve
on a wisteria branch
that lies beyond my reaching
- Meaning
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Meaning to break it for my sovereign's headdress, I have laid my sleeve on a wisteria branch that lies beyond my reach.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Yadorigi
In the Second Month Kaoru took the Emperor's Second Princess as his wife. In the Fourth Month a wisteria banquet was held at the Fujitsubo, the Emperor himself attending, and poems were exchanged. This, by Kaoru, is the first of them. He puts his awe at having been given so high a lady into the figure of the wisteria. The Emperor, Yugiri, and the Kobai Grand Counsellor follow, and the banquet goes brightly on, while Kaoru's mind is still at Uji.
Suberaki is the sovereign, and kazashi is a flower or spray worn in the hair or at the cap. "A branch beyond my reach" is a high branch, said of the Second Princess's rank. Sode kaketekeri is to have laid one's sleeve on a thing, with the sense of having stretched out a hand to what is above one. The deference he had stated at the opening of the chapter, in the poem about a flower at an ordinary hedge, returns here as awe after the marriage.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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