This body of mine
that longs for her draws toward
its own end, and yet
what remains in abundance
turns out to be only tears

Meaning

This body of mine that longs for her draws toward its end, and yet what remains in abundance turns out to be tears.

Commentary

Part Two: Maboroshi

　Genji answered Chujo no Kimi's poem with this one. His life is nearly out, he says, and his tears show no sign of running out—an admission that the anniversary has changed nothing. All that year he had held to his wish to take vows without acting on it, and from about this time he began in earnest to put his affairs in order. In the Twelfth Month he burned Murasaki no Ue's letters, and at the year's end he spoke the poem that closes his life.

　"Longs for her" is thinking of the dead. "Draws toward its own end" is having little life left. "What remains in abundance" sets the shortness of one thing against the quantity of another. He takes up her tears and her ending and swaps which of them runs out, keeping the form of an exchange while saying plainly what his last years have come to.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

This body of mine that longs for her draws toward its own end, and yet what remains in abundance turns out to be only tears

This body of mine
that longs for her draws toward
its own end, and yet
what remains in abundance
turns out to be only tears