The flute's own measure
has not changed at all, and yet
the sound of weeping
for the one who came to nothing
is a sound that does not end

Meaning

The flute's measure has not changed at all; yet the weeping for the one who came to nothing is a sound that never ends.

Commentary

Part Two: Yokobue

　Yugiri answered the Ichijo lady's poem with this one. Receiving Kashiwagi's flute as a keepsake, he says that the flute's tone is what it always was and only its owner is gone, and so speaks his unending feeling for his friend. The chapter takes its name from this poem. He carried the flute home, and that night Kashiwagi came to him in a dream and said something he had not expected about where the flute should go.

　"Measure" is the tone and tuning of an instrument. "At all" also sounds the word for koto, carrying forward the pun that has run through the exchange. "Came to nothing" is died. "Sound" is the flute's note and at the same time the sound of weeping, so that an unchanged instrument and unending tears are set as a pair. Though it is the courtesy owed on receiving a keepsake, it holds the contrast between a thing and a person in a single poem, and it is the piece by which the chapter is known.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

The flute's own measure has not changed at all, and yet the sound of weeping for the one who came to nothing is a sound that does not end

The flute's own measure
has not changed at all, and yet
the sound of weeping
for the one who came to nothing
is a sound that does not end