Though I go on thus,
circling through a bitter world,
who in the city
of the moon will ever know
that I am living at all

Meaning

Though I go on circling through this bitter world, who in the city of the moon will ever know that I am alive?

Commentary

Part Three: Tenarai

　Come to herself, Ukifune took the five precepts and tried to lean on religion, but would not say who she was. The house at Ono lies at the foot of Mount Hiei, far from the capital. She wished no one to know she was alive, and yet could not cut off her thoughts of those she had left there. This she wrote in her brush practice after the poem before. From here it is only in such written lines that anything of her real mind escapes.

　Meguru is to go on living through the world, and belongs also with the course of the moon. "The city of the moon" is the moon's world in the old tale of the bamboo cutter, and stands here for the capital. It states in one line where Ukifune now is: alive, and counted among the dead. She says she wants no one to know, and the poem may equally be read as a lament that no one does; that double edge gives it its shadow.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Though I go on thus, circling through a bitter world, who in the city of the moon will ever know that I am living at all

Though I go on thus,
circling through a bitter world,
who in the city
of the moon will ever know
that I am living at all