Though the jewelled vine
be severed, it will not end;
by the gods who guard
the offerings on the road
I go, I will swear it so

Meaning

Though the jewelled vine be cut, my feeling will not end; by the wayside gods of the road I travel, I swear it.

Commentary

Part One: Yomogiu

　Jiju answered her lady's poem with this one. Her old nurse's dying charge went without saying, she told her, and they had endured hard years together, and now she was being drawn away on an unlooked-for journey; how long she would live she could not say. Hurried into the carriage by the aunt, she looked back again and again. After this only useless old women remained in the house, and a winter came that buried it in snow.

　"Tamakazura" takes up her lady's word, keeping the etiquette of exchange, and "severed" belongs to the same vine. "The god of offerings" is the wayside deity who guards travellers, marking her as the one setting out. "Kakete" belongs to the vine as well while also meaning to keep in mind and to swear upon. Her lady grieved that the bond was breaking; she answers that the form may break but the feeling will not.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Though the jewelled vine be severed, it will not end; by the gods who guard the offerings on the road I go, I will swear it so

Though the jewelled vine
be severed, it will not end;
by the gods who guard
the offerings on the road
I go, I will swear it so