It is not yet an
old thing, worn out and gone by—
and for your sake I
would have you know that I wait
here with a heart that is deep
- Meaning
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It is not yet an old and worn-out thing; and for your sake I would have you know that I wait here with a deep heart.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Ukifune
At the end of Kaoru's twenty-sixth year, Niou could not put out of mind the woman he had pressed at the Nijo residence the autumn before and then lost, and he went on suspecting that Naka no Kimi had hidden her from him. With the new year a letter came from Uji to Naka no Kimi. A small page brought it in, Niou's eye fell on it, and he read this poem. It was nothing remarkable, but it struck him that the hand might be that of the woman he had been thinking of; he urged Naka no Kimi to answer it, and began to find out who had written it.
Furu is to grow old, to pass one's prime. Matsu, to wait, is read by some as carrying matsu, the pine, keeping a note of new-year congratulation. The narrator calls the poem kotonaru koto naki, nothing out of the ordinary, and it is exactly its ordinariness that nearly let it pass unread; instead Niou's eye stopped on it, and Ukifune's fate begins to move. What decides the matter is not the quality of the poem but whose poem it is.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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