If I do not leave
even this husk behind me
in the bitter world,
you too will hold it against
me, with no grave left to mark
- Meaning
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If I do not leave even this husk of a body behind me in the bitter world, you too will hold it against me, having no grave to mark.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Ukifune
To Ukifune, who had settled on death, came a letter from her mother Chujo no Kimi in the capital, written in complete ignorance and full of eagerness for the day her daughter would come up to the city. It went through her. If she threw herself into the river no body would be left, and her mother would have nowhere even to set a grave: that is the poem. Her resolve did not change, and she wrote her last letters to Niou and to her mother alone.
Kara is a dead body. "The bitter world" is this world, and ushi, the word that runs through the chapter, stands here too. Haka is a grave, and sounds also as haka, a clear reckoning. Kimi is her mother. That she should think first of the trouble left to those behind rather than of her own death shows her character exactly.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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