The world that I had
settled it with myself was
over and done with—
from that same world I have turned
away, and turned away again

Meaning

From the world I had settled with myself was over and done with, I have turned away, and turned away again.

Commentary

Part Three: Tenarai

　Written in her brush practice after the poem before. The life she had decided that night was at an end has gone on, she says, and she has had to renounce the world a second time. As a nun she grew quiet at last and passed her days peacefully with Shosho and the others, though letters from the Captain still came.

　Kagiri zo is that this is the end, said of the night at Uji when she resolved to drown herself. Omoi naru is to settle a thing in one's mind. Kaesu gaesu mo is over and over, and states the fact of two renunciations. The same matter as the poem before is set down again in other words, and the pair together show how deep it goes.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

I pass my days here without even knowing them to be bitter ones, and yet, it seems, I was thought by others one who broods
Holding myself and all others to be no more, I have gone and cast away a second time the world I had cast away once
I find myself in haste, lest I be left behind by the fisher's boat that must be rowing far out now and away from the shore
My heart, it is true, has put off the shore of this bitter world—and yet I am the fisher's drifting wood, that knows not where it goes

The world that I had settled it with myself was over and done with— from that same world I have turned away, and turned away again

The world that I had
settled it with myself was
over and done with—
from that same world I have turned
away, and turned away again