I would put it to
the lady of the mountain,
who dyed one same branch
in two colours: which of them
is it that she made the deeper

Meaning

I would ask the lady of the mountain, who dyed one same branch in two colours, which of them she made the deeper.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Oigimi meant her sister for Kaoru in her own place, and kept trying to turn his feeling aside. He answers that his heart was hers from the beginning. Their argument over the two sisters leads on to the scheme by which he brings Niou to Uji.

　Yamahime is the goddess said to dye the leaves of the hills in autumn. "One same branch" stands for two sisters born of one parent. To ask which is deeper is a rhetorical question: there is no need to ask, since his heart is with the elder. Beneath the graceful figure of two shades of autumn colour lies a will that will not accept the substitution.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

In the many voices by which one comes to know how a hill village feels, all of it is gathered up into this one growing light
I had thought these hills a place where not even the voice of a bird comes, and yet the bitterness of the world has sought me out here
What is in the mind of the lady who dyes them I cannot make out, yet surely it is the one that changes that goes deeper
Fencing off the wide field where the maidenflowers have come into bloom, is it with so small a heart that you rope it as your own

I would put it to the lady of the mountain, who dyed one same branch in two colours: which of them is it that she made the deeper

I would put it to
the lady of the mountain,
who dyed one same branch
in two colours: which of them
is it that she made the deeper