This wetness I can
not tell as of then or now,
and it is autumn
nights themselves, taken all in
all, that are hard to bear at all

Meaning

This wetness I cannot tell as belonging to then or to now; taken all in all, it is autumn nights themselves that are hard to bear.

Commentary

Part Two: Minori

　Genji answered the retired Chancellor's poem with this one. He cannot tell the older grief from the present one, he says, and takes the sorrow not as a particular thing but as what autumn nights are. Two men who had once been rivals are here, in old age, sharing the same loss. Genji withdrew further from company after this, and though his wish to leave the world grew, he could not bring himself to it for fear of how it would look.

　"This wetness" takes up the other man's dew. "Cannot tell as of then or now" is being unable to separate the two. "Taken all in all" is speaking generally. The final clause is emphatic, with the classical construction that requires its particular verb ending. Where the Chancellor set two autumns side by side, Genji says he cannot tell them apart and moves the subject to autumn itself; generalizing the grief is what makes its depth felt.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

This wetness I can not tell as of then or now, and it is autumn nights themselves, taken all in all, that are hard to bear at all

This wetness I can
not tell as of then or now,
and it is autumn
nights themselves, taken all in
all, that are hard to bear at all