I would have heard it
as one hears a common thing—
the cicada's voice,
which is hateful to me now,
at the closing of autumn

Meaning

I would have heard it as one hears an ordinary thing: the cicada's voice, which now sounds hateful to me at the close of autumn.

Commentary

Part Three: Yadorigi

　With Niou's visits growing rare, Naka no Kimi passed uneasy days at the Nijo residence. At the close of autumn, listening to the evening cicadas, she spoke this to herself. From about this time her wish to go back to Uji grew strong, and she began to say so to Kaoru as well. He soothed her as her guardian and at the same time found his own feeling for her harder and harder to hold in.

　Ohokata ni is as one takes an ordinary thing, meaning that at Uji she could have let the sound pass as one more noise of autumn. The higurashi is the cicada that cries at evening in autumn, an image that adds to loneliness. In aki no kure, aki carries aki, weariness, so that the lament of a woman grown tiresome is in it. The idea that the same sound is heard differently according to one's circumstances runs on directly from her earlier poem on the pines of the mountain village.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

I would have heard it as one hears a common thing— the cicada's voice, which is hateful to me now, at the closing of autumn

I would have heard it
as one hears a common thing—
the cicada's voice,
which is hateful to me now,
at the closing of autumn