The lodging tree has
altered in its colour now
that autumn is here,
and yet how clear the moon is,
recalling the days of old
- Meaning
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The lodging tree has changed its colour in this autumn, and yet how clear the moon is, recalling the days of old.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Azumaya
On the night they reached Uji, Kaoru took out the kin and the so, which he had not touched in a long while, and played a little, remembering how the Eighth Prince had sounded. As the moon rose, fruit came from Ben the nun's quarters on the lid of a box strewn with maple and ivy, and on the paper beneath it this poem stood in a thick old hand. Kaoru found it both shaming and moving, and murmured an answer. From here Ukifune is left at Uji, waiting for his visits.
Yadorigi looks back to the exchange between Kaoru and Ben in the Yadorigi chapter the autumn before, and to say that the colour has changed is to say, without saying it, that the woman he comes to is no longer Oigimi but Ukifune. The clear moon is Kaoru, and sumu, to be clear, carries sumu, to dwell. The hand and the manner are those of an old gentlewoman, and yet she names the whole situation obliquely and exactly; the eye of the one left behind at Uji is very sure.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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