In the flute that breathes
and carries the old days on,
and in the singing
of the birds as well—nothing,
nothing at all has changed

Meaning

The flute breathes on the music of the old days, and even the song of the birds is what it always was—nothing here has changed at all.

Commentary

Part One: Otome

　This poem was offered with the cup to the reigning Emperor by Genji's younger brother, once Viceroy and now Minister of War. Genji's poem had looked back with longing to the reign of the Kiritsubo Emperor, and the Retired Emperor's had lamented his own reduced circumstances; left so, the exchange came close to a reproach against the present reign. The Prince turned it aside by declaring that nothing was in any way less fine than before. His delivery was admirable, and his tact, we are told, quite out of the common; and His Majesty took the cup and answered him.

　"Inishie," the old days, means here the beauty of the music at the banquet of flowers in the Kiritsubo Emperor's reign. "Fuetake" is the flute, or music generally. "The song of the birds" renders the strains of Shun'oden. The particle "sae," meaning even, piles one upon the other—not the flute alone but the birds too—to insist that nothing has altered. Where the two poems before had leaned toward longing for the past and grief for the present, this one restores the company by saying that the present reign is in no way the lesser. It shows how a poem at such a gathering is never mere elegance, but carries its measure of politics as well.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

In the flute that breathes and carries the old days on, and in the singing of the birds as well—nothing, nothing at all has changed

In the flute that breathes
and carries the old days on,
and in the singing
of the birds as well—nothing,
nothing at all has changed