Is the goosegrass thick
that stops the doorway up? At
the eaves of this east
country hut I have waited
so long in the falling rain
- Meaning
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Is the goosegrass so thick that it stops the doorway? At the eaves of this eastern hut I have waited too long in the falling rain.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Azumaya
On a rainy night about the twelfth of the Ninth Month, Kaoru sent Ben the nun ahead and then came himself to the little house at Sanjo where Ukifune was hidden. The household, taken by surprise, was in confusion and could not get him inside. Sitting on the edge of the rough verandah, murmuring the line from the Manyoshu about there being no house at the Sano crossing, he spoke this poem. The chapter takes its name, Azumaya, from it, and the next morning he put Ukifune into a carriage and took her to Uji.
Sashitomuru is to stop a doorway up. Mugura is the rank creeper that stands, by convention, for a house gone to ruin. Azumaya is a poor hut with its roof thatched down on all four sides, and lays the eastern-bred Ukifune over the house itself. Amari is both the eaves and "too much." The poem leans on the saibara song called Azumaya, in which a man asks that the door be opened to him, and the words of the song fit the scene exactly.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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