Within the sacred
rope it feels no longer as
it was in the past,
and those days of the gods' age
now, even now, I long for

Meaning

Within the sacred rope it feels no longer as it once was, and those days of the age of gods I long for now, even now.

Commentary

Part One: Eawase

　The former Priestess answered the Retired Emperor's poem with this one. Since it would be unkind not to reply, she broke off a little of the end of a hair-pin she had used in the old days, wrapped it in pale blue Chinese paper, and sent it, though it troubled her. The gift to the messenger was elegant. Seeing it, the Retired Emperor was moved beyond measure, wished he could take back the days now gone, and even felt some grievance against Genji.

　"Within the sacred rope" answers his "outside the sacred rope," meaning her life as a Priestess in the god's service. "No longer as it was" is a heart changed from before. "The age of the gods" figures her Priestess years as a mythic past. "Even now I long for it" is just that. Where he wrote of a body outside the rope, she answers by longing for the days within it, so that two who share that sacred past exchange poems with that time as their pivot.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Within the sacred rope it feels no longer as it was in the past, and those days of the gods' age now, even now, I long for

Within the sacred
rope it feels no longer as
it was in the past,
and those days of the gods' age
now, even now, I long for