Here before my eyes
it shifts, and shifting it turns
into something else—
and on this world I had set
my trust for the years ahead

Meaning

Here before my eyes it shifts, and shifting it becomes something else; and on such a bond I had set my trust for all the years ahead.

Commentary

Part Two: Wakana Jo

　In the Second Month, granting Suzaku's wish, Genji took the Third Princess into the Rokujo residence as his principal wife. Murasaki no Ue, treated for years as though she held that place, hid what she felt and calmly saw to the arrangements. On the night he went to the Princess she perfumed his robes and sent him off, and it was beside him then that she wrote this poem out as though practicing her hand. He picked it up, read it, and wrote his answer at once. From this time on she kept an even manner outwardly while beginning, little by little, to wish to leave the world.

　"Here before my eyes" means not somewhere far off but in this very place. "Shifting it turns into something else" is a bond that changes as it moves, and "the world" is also a standing word for what lies between a man and a woman. Closing on having trusted the years ahead, she says nothing of blame and speaks only of her own misjudgment. Not raising her voice is exactly what makes it cut, and the poem is known as the one that carries her feeling better than any other in the tale.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Here before my eyes it shifts, and shifting it turns into something else— and on this world I had set my trust for the years ahead

Here before my eyes
it shifts, and shifting it turns
into something else—
and on this world I had set
my trust for the years ahead