Though the bell cricket
cries out to the end of voice,
the long night wears on
unspent, and my falling tears
go on falling without end

Meaning

Though the bell cricket spends its whole voice crying, the long night does not break, and my tears keep falling without ever running out.

Commentary

Part One: Kiritsubo

　Yugei no Myobu came to the consort's home, and seeing the ruined state of the house and the mother's grief, she wept along with her. She delivered the Emperor's words, and as they talked the night deepened; saying she must return, she spoke this poem in parting. The mother answered with a poem of her own, and Myobu went back to the palace carrying keepsakes entrusted to her.

　The bell cricket cries all through the autumn night, and its spending of its whole voice is laid over Myobu's own tears, which will not run out. "Akazu" holds both "the night does not break" and "it does not exhaust itself," so that the long night and the endless grief are tied in a single word. That the visitor weeps as much as the bereaved is itself a way of showing, from the outside, how heavily the consort's death fell.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Though the bell cricket cries out to the end of voice, the long night wears on unspent, and my falling tears go on falling without end

Though the bell cricket
cries out to the end of voice,
the long night wears on
unspent, and my falling tears
go on falling without end