Though I do not say
that we have worn the night robe
until it grew soft,
surely I am not without
the right to a grievance

Meaning

Though I do not claim that we have worn the night robe until it grew soft, surely I am not without the right to a grievance.

Commentary

Part Three: Agemaki

　Even after Niou and Naka no Kimi were joined, nothing changed between Kaoru and Oigimi. He argues that they have talked through the curtain and that he has even seen her face, and that he does not deserve to be held off. She answered this too, and kept her line.

　Sayogoromo is a night robe or bedding, and suggests lying together. Naru is both to wear a garment until it softens and to grow familiar, and belongs with clothing. Kakoto is a grievance or a pretext for one. Granting that there has been no union, he insists that he has still earned the right to complain, and the poem is pressing in tone.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Think, then, of a heart that spends its days in the dark on this side and that, if you go astray upon a road no one sent you down
Do you take it for an ordinary matter— that I made my way parting the bamboo grass on a road so deep in the dew
Though our hearts may pass between us without a screen, I would have you not speak of sleeves that have grown soft with long wearing, one on one
It is not that we are to be broken off, and yet must you, like the lady of the bridge, wet through your lone sleeve in the night hours

Though I do not say that we have worn the night robe until it grew soft, surely I am not without the right to a grievance

Though I do not say
that we have worn the night robe
until it grew soft,
surely I am not without
the right to a grievance