Your coldness becomes
the common way of this sad
world, more and more—
is it only I, who cannot
forget, who am unlike the rest?

Meaning

Your coldness grows more and more like the common way of this sad world; is it only I, who cannot forget, who am unlike the rest?

Commentary

Part One: Umegae

　As the preparations for the Akashi girl's entry into the palace went steadily forward, the Minister of the Center heard of it as of something no concern of his, and felt it keenly. His own daughter was at the height of her beauty, and sat idle and low in spirits. Yugiri kept up his cool manner, and to give way first would only expose the Minister to ridicule; so he brooded alone. Then a woman told him that Prince Nakatsukasa had sounded Genji out, and that the two were considering a match with Yugiri; and, struck afresh, he spoke of it before his daughter with tears in his eyes. She was so ashamed that tears came without any reason, and she turned her face away. After he had gone she stayed where she was, near the veranda, sunk in thought—and then a letter came from Yugiri. At the end of it, written out at length, stood this poem.

　"Tsurenasa" is coldness, indifference. "Uki yo" plays the floating world against the world of sorrow. "Becomes the common way of this world" says that her coldness is settling into the ordinary unkindness of everyone. "The one who cannot forget" is himself; "unlike the rest" is: am I alone not as others are? He sets his own unchanging feeling against a woman drifting toward the common measure. But Yugiri knows nothing whatever of the proposed match, so that to her the plea can only look cold.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Your coldness becomes the common way of this sad world, more and more— is it only I, who cannot forget, who am unlike the rest?

Your coldness becomes
the common way of this sad
world, more and more—
is it only I, who cannot
forget, who am unlike the rest?