Of things long ago
that will not be forgotten,
and at the hard joints
of the flute-bamboo as well,
I have wept aloud outright

Meaning

Over things long ago that will not be forgotten, and at the hard joints of the flute-bamboo as well, I have wept aloud.

Commentary

Part Three: Tenarai

　The morning after he had stayed the night, the Captain sent this to the house. Taking as his pretext the flute he had played the evening before, he sets his memory of his dead wife beside the pain of a woman who will not answer him. The nun replied; Ukifune still would not speak. His visits went on after this, unbroken until she took vows in the Ninth Month.

　Fuedake is the bamboo a flute is cut from, and fushi carries both the joint of the bamboo and a hard passage of one's life. Ne zo nakarekeru is to have wept aloud, with ne also the note of the flute. He takes the music of the night before straight into the poem, and does it well. That he pleads his dead wife while in fact pressing his suit is very much in character.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Of things long ago that will not be forgotten, and at the hard joints of the flute-bamboo as well, I have wept aloud outright

Of things long ago
that will not be forgotten,
and at the hard joints
of the flute-bamboo as well,
I have wept aloud outright