The road we must go
at last, so I had heard—
yet I did not think
it would be yesterday
or today that it would come.
- Meaning
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I had long heard that death is the road we must all go in the end, yet I never thought it would come as soon as yesterday or today.
- Commentary
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125
A certain man, having fallen ill and sensing that death was near, composed this poem.
Until one becomes aware of it in oneself, death is thought of as something distant; yet once it comes, life proves fleeting. The poem may be taken as a direct expression of such lament.
This poem is also included in the Kokinshū among the elegies, attributed to Ariwara no Narihira. It is said that Narihira died in 880 at the age of fifty-six.
- Source
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Ise Monogatari
- Other
-
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If it becomes a field,
I will turn into a quail
and cry there in grief—
would you not come, even then,
if only for the hunt?
-
What I have in mind
I will not speak, but let it
come to an end thus—
for there is no other one
whose heart is the same as mine.
-
Spring haze drifts on
over mountains where cherry blooms—
as their colors fade,
is it that they will soon fall,
changing thus before they go?
-
Leaving nothing behind,
they fall—how admirable,
cherry blossoms;
for in this world,
if things were to remain,
their end would turn unpleasant.