Into the knotted
cords let a long bond be bound,
and in the same place
let the two strands twist and come,
I would have it, together

Meaning

Let a long bond be bound into the knotted cords, and let the two strands twist and come together in the one place.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　In autumn, while preparations went forward for the first anniversary of the Eighth Prince's death, Kaoru looked at the knotted cords made up for the altar and spoke this poem. What he had held back since the prince entrusted the daughters to him he now let out. Oigimi turned it aside, and from here the two of them press and withdraw through the whole chapter. The poem gives the chapter its name.

　Agemaki is an old style of a child's hair, and also a way of tying cords in that shape. The poem leans on the saibara song of the same name, in which a boy and girl who lay apart rolled together and grew close. Musubu and yoru, to knot and to twist, belong with the cord, and the twining of the strands is laid over the union of a man and a woman. That he turns material proper to a memorial service into a declaration of love is the point of interest.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Into the knotted cords let a long bond be bound, and in the same place let the two strands twist and come, I would have it, together

Into the knotted
cords let a long bond be bound,
and in the same place
let the two strands twist and come,
I would have it, together