Changed in this body,
I have come back alone to
the hills, where the wind
through the pines blows with a sound
like the one I knew before

Meaning

Now a nun and changed, I have come back alone to this mountain home, where the wind in the pines blows with a sound like the one I knew long ago.

Commentary

Part One: Matsukaze

　The Novice of Akashi resolved to send his daughter, her mother the nun, and the little girl born to her and Genji up to the capital. He himself stayed behind at Akashi, and the family moved to an old villa on the bank of the Oi River. The place had belonged to the nun's grandfather, Prince Nakatsukasa, and had been repaired after falling into ruin. Come back to it after all these years, the nun listened to the pines around her and, remembering the past, spoke this poem.

　"Changed in this body" tells of taking vows and altering her form as a nun. Her circumstances and her whole condition are utterly unlike the days when she lived in the capital. "The pine wind like the one I knew" is the sound heard here long ago, set against a self so wholly changed—only the wind in the pines keeps its old voice. In a sound of nature unaltered through years of wandering, the poem lays the memory of days long gone.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Changed in this body, I have come back alone to the hills, where the wind through the pines blows with a sound like the one I knew before

Changed in this body,
I have come back alone to
the hills, where the wind
through the pines blows with a sound
like the one I knew before