Is it that my sleeves
should be wet with evening dew?
Hearing, as you hear,
the cicada crying now,
you rise all the same and go

Meaning

Is it that my sleeves should be wet with the evening dew? Hearing the cicada cry as you do, you rise all the same and go.

Commentary

Part Two: Wakana Ge

　Genji, who had spent his days nursing Murasaki no Ue, came at last to see the Third Princess at Rokujo. Her conscience troubled her, and she could not look him in the face. Toward evening he took his leave to return to Nijo. She spoke this poem then, and he answered and went out. The next morning, rising early to set off, he found Kashiwagi's letter under her cushion. It was this visit that brought the affair to light.

　"Evening dew" is the dew that settles at dusk, and it stands for tears. The cicada is the one that cries at nightfall and carries the loneliness of the hour. "Rise and go" is getting up to leave, and the verb sounds the word for dew settling. Evening is when a man should be arriving, not leaving, and the poem is a complaint about the hour of his going. She says none of that outright and puts it into the insect's cry and the dew—though what makes the poem difficult is that she herself has something to hide.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Is it that my sleeves should be wet with evening dew? Hearing, as you hear, the cicada crying now, you rise all the same and go

Is it that my sleeves
should be wet with evening dew?
Hearing, as you hear,
the cicada crying now,
you rise all the same and go