How much do you feel,
and in what measure—well now,
how is it? Should one
who has not yet seen your face
be troubled by what she hears?

Meaning

And how much is this feeling of yours—well now, how is it? Should one who has never seen you be troubled by hearsay alone?

Commentary

Part One: Akashi

　The daughter at last took up her own brush and answered Genji's poem with this. It is the first in which Akashi no Kimi speaks in her own voice rather than through her father. Reserved as it is, it turns his words back on him, and from this reply Genji understood that she was no ordinary country woman.

　"Yayoya ikani" takes up his own phrase, keeping the etiquette of exchange. "One who has not yet seen you" is herself. "Should she be troubled by hearsay?" is a rhetorical question expecting no. He had used a call to summon her own voice; she returns the same call and asks it back at him, so that wit and wariness work at once.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

How much do you feel, and in what measure—well now, how is it? Should one who has not yet seen your face be troubled by what she hears?

How much do you feel,
and in what measure—well now,
how is it? Should one
who has not yet seen your face
be troubled by what she hears?