Watatsumi no fukaki kokoro wa okinagara uramirarenuru mono ni zo arikeru

English Translation

A heart as deep as
the sea I keep, and yet — off
shore, out of your sight —
it turns out to be a thing
that gets itself resented

Meaning

I keep a heart as deep as the sea; and still, being out at sea and out of sight, it turns out to be a thing that gets resented.

Commentary

52 A Heart Deep as the Sea

This too is the emperor's reply. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
The emperor is the one of the fifty-first section, where he answers the High Priestess's complaint; this poem is placed as a further reply. The arrangement suggests the same recipient, though the prose does not say so.
Neither time nor place is given.
The prose records nothing of what prompted it. It stands as a second reply following the exchange of the previous section.
The section ends with the poem; no response and no later event is recorded. It was later included in the Shūi-shū.

The first word means the sea, and also the god of the sea; it leads into the word for depth that follows.
The verb in the third line means both to hold something in the heart and to be out in the offing, so that keeping a deep heart and lying far out at sea are one phrase.
The word for resentment contains the word for a bay, so that the poem's whole complaint rests on a seascape of open water and shoreline.
The closing, with an emphatic particle governing its verb, states it flatly. Puns keep the sea in view throughout, and what the poem means is that a deep heart cannot be seen from the surface.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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