How without guile I
believed it, that promise we
made to each other—
that the waves would never cross
over the pines and beyond

Meaning

How trustingly I believed our promise—that the waves would never cross over the pines.

Commentary

Part One: Akashi

　Murasaki no Ue answered his poem with this one, reproaching him plainly through an old poem: had he not sworn he would never change? It is the only poem in this chapter in which she takes him to task directly, and it told on him: his visits to Akashi grew further apart afterward.

　"Uranaku" is without suspicion, openly, and carries the word for bay, using his own coastal vocabulary against him. "Chigirishi" is the promise made. "The waves will not cross the pines" draws on the old poem about the pines of Sue no Matsuyama, long a figure for a heart that cannot change. He had made the affair a fisherfolk's diversion; she answers in the same sea vocabulary with the breaking of a vow.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

How without guile I believed it, that promise we made to each other— that the waves would never cross over the pines and beyond

How without guile I
believed it, that promise we
made to each other—
that the waves would never cross
over the pines and beyond