Though it is bitter,
I cannot yet forget you,
for all your cruelty;
and so, even in blame,
still do I long for you.

Meaning

Though I find you cruel and bitter, I cannot forget you; thus, even as I reproach you, I still long for you.

Commentary

Episode Twenty-Two: "Though it is bitter"

A man and a woman, not deeply bound to one another, parted over some slight occasion.
Though they separated from their uncertain bond, they were fortunate to confirm each other’s feelings and to restore their relationship, and this process is portrayed in candid poems.

This poem was composed by the woman and sent to the man from whom she had parted.
Because it is a poem filled with lingering attachment, one wonders whether they had lost one another simply by living without heed to each other.
Perhaps the cause of their parting had not been clear in the first place.

Source

Ise Monogatari

Other

In doubting heart that thinks I would forget— that very doubt makes all the more my sorrow deeper than before.
Like clouds that rise and stand in mid-air, leaving no trace— so has my fleeting self come utterly to nothing.
Now that we have met and made our hearts as one— like river water that parts around an island yet flows on without end.
If autumn nights— a thousand of them— be counted as one, and we should lie through eight thousand nights, would there ever come a time of weariness?

Though it is bitter, I cannot yet forget you, for all your cruelty; and so, even in blame, still do I long for you.

Though it is bitter,
I cannot yet forget you,
for all your cruelty;
and so, even in blame,
still do I long for you.