"Yomogiu" refers to a dilapidated house overgrown by weeds, in casu quo the dwelling of Her Highness of Hitachi, Suetsumuhana, who we met in chapter 6 (The Safflower). The time of this chapter roughly overlaps with the previous chapter, The Pilgrimage to Sumiyoshi.
[Tosa Mitsunobu, 1509-10, Harvard Art Museum]
While Genji has been in exile in Suma and Akashi, the Safflower Lady (Suetsumuhana) has continued to wait for Genji even though she has fallen into poverty and her mansion lies in ruins - she obviously misses the occasional financial support Genji rendered her in the past. Her house and garden are overgrown with grasses and her ladies one after the other leave her service.
The only person with whom she is still in contact is her aunt, who has been married to a former provincial governor. But the aunt is tired of the condescension of her higher placed relatives in the capital, and when her husband becomes Senior Assistant Governor-General of Kyushu, she decides to follow him to the countryside (despite the fact that the families of provincial governors often stayed in the capital, making this job normally an instance of "tanshin funin"). The aunt invites Suetsumuhana as well, but the Hitachi lady prefers to stay in the house that she has inherited from her father, however dilapidated it is. Unfortunately for her, her aunt does take the wet nurse with her on whom Suetsumuhana depends as housekeeper.
In spring of the new year, Genji decides to pay a visit to his old love, Hanachirusato (see chapter 11), but when he happens to pass by a house overgrown with weeds among which wisteria fronds hang, his curiosity is aroused, and he remembers this must be the home of Suetsumuhana. Recalling their affair ten years before, Genji pays a visit. Deeply touched by her constancy, he undertakes to refurbish her mansion and eventually will install her at his Nijo mansion to look after her. The three years he was exiled to Suma and Akashi, he had completely forgotten about her.
This chapter shows the moral side of Genji: as a true gentleman he keeps caring for the women he has once loved, however slight the tie was as in this case.
Genji-e
Scenes chosen for illustration include: the Safflower Lady in her dilapidated mansion giving farewell presents to her departing nurse; and Genji coming to visit the Safflower Lady while his servant Koremitsu clears a path through the overgrown garden (as in the picture above). The latter scene is also found in the extant 12th c. illustrated version in the Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya.
Reading The Tale of Genji