Mi hitotsu ni aranu bakari o oshinabete yukimegurite mo nadoka mizaramu

English Translation

You are not alone
in being made to depart
all of us alike
must go and circle onward
so why should we see no more

Meaning

You are not the only one who must go. All of us alike will move on and circle round, and in the end, why should we not see this place again?

Commentary

1 The Wall of Kokiden

The Teiji Emperor saw the poem Ise had written on the wall of Kokiden, "Wakaruredo aimo oshimanu momoshiki o mizaramu koto no nanika kanashiki," and had a poem of his own written beside it by an attendant. That is the poem here, and with it the first section closes.
The poet is Emperor Uda, husband of the consort Onshi whom Ise served, and the man whose favour Ise herself had received.
The setting is Kokiden in the inner palace on the eve of the abdication, in the ninth year of Kanpyō.
Finding the poem on the wall is itself what prompted the reply. The emperor did not take up the brush; he had someone at hand write it for him.
This reply too was included in the Gosen-shū, and the pair has long been known as an exchange. The second section goes on to tell how the retired emperor shaved his head the following autumn and travelled among the mountains with his attendant.

The opening lines answer that leaving the palace is not a thing confined to her alone; the particle of limitation is brought in only to be denied. The third line widens this to take in everyone.
The phrase about going and circling round carries the sense of coming back at the end of a long turning, and its concessive grammar allows for their being scattered in the meantime.
The closing question is rhetorical: how should they not see it again — meaning that a day for seeing it will come.
Where Ise asked why it should be sad, he answers with a question shaped the same way, asking why they should not see it again. That correspondence is what makes the pair an exchange. He does not deny her grief so much as restate it as something that will pass.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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