By this music of
the koto, unchanged from when
we made our promise—
did you come to know how far
my heart runs on without end

Meaning

By the koto's music, unchanged since the day we made our vow, did you come to see how my heart runs on and never ends?

Commentary

Part One: Matsukaze

　Using as his pretext the Buddhist rites at the chapel he had long kept at Katsura, Genji left the capital and went to call on the lady of Akashi at the Oi villa. It was their first meeting in a long while. Between the two, come together again after parting on the shore of Akashi, there was still a feeling that would not end. When Genji urged her to play the koto, she plucked it, hesitant; and the sound was in no way changed from what he had heard at Akashi. Moved by it, he spoke this poem.

　"When we made our promise" points to the pledge of reunion made long ago at Akashi. "The koto's music unchanged" is the tone not in the least altered from what he heard then. As the koto's music has not changed, so his own heart, he says, is unchanged and does not end. "Did you come to know" asks whether she had understood this. By laying the constancy of the music directly over the constancy of the heart, the poem tells of an affection that runs on through long absence.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

By this music of the koto, unchanged from when we made our promise— did you come to know how far my heart runs on without end

By this music of
the koto, unchanged from when
we made our promise—
did you come to know how far
my heart runs on without end