From this time onward
I shall gather them for you,
year after year: these
young herbs of the fields, where the
snow is lying deep upon them
- Meaning
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From now on I shall gather them for you, year after year: these young herbs of the deep-snowed fields.
- Commentary
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Part Three: Tenarai
Ukifune's reply. She will live from now on, she says, for the woman who saved her, and the poem shows that she has found her footing at last after taking vows. That she should say this to a foster mother, when she cannot even give her name to her own, states her position exactly. Life at Ono goes quietly on from here.
"The young herbs of the deep-snowed fields" takes over the scene of the other poem. Kimi ga tame ni zo, for your sake and no one else's, leans on the Kokinshu poem about going out into the spring fields to gather young herbs for another. Toshi mo tsumu beki is to gather them year by year, with the sense of long service. It is a warm and simple answer, blessing returned for blessing.
- Author
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Murasaki Shikibu
- Source
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Genji Monogatari
- Other
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