かくしつつとにもかくにもながらへて
君が八千代にあふよしもがな
君が八千代にあふよしもがな
- Roma-ji
-
Kaku shitsutsu to ni mo kaku ni mo nagaraete
kimi ga yachiyo ni au yoshi mogana - English Translation
-
thus as I am now
in one way or another I live
lingering on still—
if only there were a way to meet
your eight thousand years
- Meaning
- In this way, somehow lingering on in life, if only there were a way to meet your long enduring years.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Felicitations
A poem composed by the emperor when he bestowed a seventieth-year congratulatory gift upon the monk Henjō.
The phrase “in one way or another, lingering on” suggests a sense that the speaker may not live long. Knowing that Emperor Kōkō passed away two years later, and Henjō five years after that, the poem carries a quiet awareness of mortality, expressing a wish to live on and share in the other’s long years.
- Author
- Emperor Koko
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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