Wondering where I
might throw this body away,
I go weeping through
hills that not even the white
clouds have come to rest upon

Meaning

Wondering where I might throw this body away, I go weeping even through hills on which no white cloud has come to rest.

Commentary

Part Three: Ukifune

　After the twentieth of the Third Month, Niou rode down to Uji as he had through the snow, but the watch Kaoru had set was strict and he could not reach Ukifune. On the empty road back he spoke this to himself. His attachment to a woman now put beyond his reach comes out as a grief with nowhere to go. It was his last journey to Uji.

　"Throw this body away" is to drown oneself or to take vows, the language of a man at the end of his patience. "Hills on which no white cloud rests" are low hills, places from which the world cannot be left behind, and the conceit turns inside out the old image of a mountain road wrapped in cloud. He follows the form of a man who goes into the hills after a lost love, and what shows through is that even his hills are ordinary ones.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Wondering where I might throw this body away, I go weeping through hills that not even the white clouds have come to rest upon

Wondering where I
might throw this body away,
I go weeping through
hills that not even the white
clouds have come to rest upon