To go on living
is a wretched thing, and yet,
the year coming round,
today I feel as though I
had met that world once again

Meaning

To go on living is a wretched thing; and yet, the year having come round, today I feel as if I had met those days again.

Commentary

Part One: Sakaki

　Fujitsubo answered him with this poem. That day she put all thought of what had passed between them aside and kept the observances, wet with snowmelt. Later, past the tenth of the twelfth month, the lectures were held, and on the closing day she suddenly took vows.

　"Nagarafuru" is to go on living, and states how hard survival is. "Coming round" is the year turning to the same day again, taking up his "this day has come." "That world" is the years while the late Emperor lived. To his lament that no date can be set for a reunion she answers that the anniversary is itself the reunion—a reply with the weight of faith behind it.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Do you take the tears of these days when we do not meet and I hold back for nothing more than the rain that falls from a common sky
This day of parting has come round to us again, but the one I knew— when may I count on the time when I shall go and meet her
Though I set my heart on the cloud-dwelling where the moon lives, and follow, shall I not still go straying in the darkness of this world
In the general wretchedness of things I turn away from the world, and yet when shall I be done with turning my back on it

To go on living is a wretched thing, and yet, the year coming round, today I feel as though I had met that world once again

To go on living
is a wretched thing, and yet,
the year coming round,
today I feel as though I
had met that world once again