It is not simply
as a wretched thing alone
that I feel all this—
and so my sleeves are wet on
the one side and the other

Meaning

I do not feel it simply as a bitter thing, and so both my sleeves, the one and the other, are wet.

Commentary

Part One: Suma

　That night Genji remembered how warmly the Suzaku Emperor had talked with him of old times, and how like their father he had looked; he kept beside him the robe the Emperor had given him and never let it out of reach. Murmuring a line of Chinese verse he went indoors, and spoke this poem there. Resentment and affection pressed on him at the same moment.

　"Ushi" is bitter, hard to bear. "Hitoe ni" is wholly, in one direction only, and the poem says his feeling is not of one color. "Both sleeves wet" means tears of resentment and tears of longing running together. Two contrary feelings are set into the concrete form of a left sleeve and a right, and it shows very well a heart that does not settle into simple grievance.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

It is not simply as a wretched thing alone that I feel all this— and so my sleeves are wet on the one side and the other

It is not simply
as a wretched thing alone
that I feel all this—
and so my sleeves are wet on
the one side and the other