The one who has loved
all these years is the same still,
yet by what strand of
the jeweled vine did she come,
tracing her way here to me?

Meaning

I who have gone on loving her are the same man I was; but by what strand of the jeweled vine did this girl trace her way to me?

Commentary

Part One: Tamakazura

　In the Ninth Month the girl was received at the Rokujo estate, in the west wing of the summer quarter, which the lady of the falling flowers looked after. That very night Genji came, and they met across a curtain-stand. She had known the name of the Shining Genji all her life, but catching sight of him by the faint lamplight she was struck by a beauty that frightened her. He was in no way distant with her; very much the father, he wiped his eyes and said he had grieved all these years not knowing where she was, and reproached her, gently, for not opening her heart. When she answered, citing the old tale of the leech child to speak of her life, her voice was very like the dead Yugao's, and young. Going back, he told Murasaki that she had grown up far better than he had expected, and that he should like to see her set the gallants—the Prince of War among them—in a flutter; then he drew the inkstone to him, wrote this poem idly, and murmured, "How moving." Murasaki saw in it that the girl was indeed the child of one he had loved deeply.

　"Koi-wataru" is to go on loving over long years. "The one is the same still" reverses an old poem of the Gosenshu: "By what road did you come seeking me, jeweled vine? For I am not the man I was." In "tamakazura," "tama" is an honorific, "kazura" a trailing vine and also a vine ornament worn in the hair; the running of the vine leads to "suji," the strand. From this word come both the chapter's name and the girl's. The years of longing for the mother and the unlooked-for bond with the daughter are drawn together along a single strand of vine. That a note of love lingers even as he plays the father is already the theme of the ten Tamakazura chapters to come.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

The one who has loved all these years is the same still, yet by what strand of the jeweled vine did she come, tracing her way here to me?

The one who has loved
all these years is the same still,
yet by what strand of
the jeweled vine did she come,
tracing her way here to me?