Tamashii wa okashiki koto mo nakarikeri yorozu no mono wa kara ni zo arikeru

English Translation

The soul, it turns out
has nothing much to be said
for it after all
Everything there is is shell
nothing but the empty shell

Meaning

The soul, it turns out, has nothing much to be said for it. Everything there is is shell — nothing but the empty shell.

Commentary

89 The Icefish at the Weir

While a man who held the post of Master of the Right Horse Bureau was visiting a woman known as the Lady of Shuri, he sent word that the direction was closed to him and he could not come, and she composed "Kore naranu koto o mo ōku tagaureba uramimu kata mo naki zo wabishiki". Later, when he had stopped coming altogether, she composed "Ikade nao ajiro no hio ni koto towamu nani ni yorite ka ware o towanu to", and his reply was "Ajiro yori hoka ni wa hio no yoru mono ka shirazu wa Uji no hito ni toe kashi". From the days when he was still visiting there is a poem she made at an early morning parting, "Akenu tote isogi mo zo suru Ōsaka no kiri tachinu tomo hito ni kikasu na", and one he made when he first began coming, "Ikani shite ware wa kienamu shiratsuyu no kaerite nochi no mono wa omowaji"; her reply to it was "Kakiho naru kimi ga asagao mite shi kana kaerite nochi wa mono ya omou to". After a night together, on going home, he composed "Kokoro o shi kimi ni todomete kinishikaba mono omou koto wa ware ni ya aruramu", and the Lady of Shuri answered with "Tamashii wa okashiki koto mo nakarikeri yorozu no mono wa kara ni zo arikeru". That is the whole of the section.
The Lady of Shuri takes her name from that office. The Master of the Right Horse Bureau headed the office responsible for horses. This section holds eight poems and is not arranged in order of time: the poems from after his visits ceased come first, and the section then turns back to the days when he was still coming.
The setting is the same morning, after he had gone.
What prompted the poem is his, "Kokoro o shi kimi ni todomete kinishikaba mono omou koto wa ware ni ya aruramu", with its argument about leaving his heart behind.
This reply closes the eighty-ninth section. Holding eight poems, the section begins after his visits had ceased and works backwards to their beginning.

The opening says that the soul has nothing to recommend it; the word she negates means charm, or the satisfaction of the mind.
Taking up his claim to have left his heart with her, she answers that a heart on its own is no use to anyone.
The word in the last line is the husk, the empty shell left when something has gone out of it. A heart present without a body is what she calls a shell, with an emphatic particle governing the verb.
She meets his argument with one of her own and states flatly that a heart left behind is worth nothing. Like the empty shell of the eighty-fifth section, the poem closes on a word for what has nothing inside it.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

Other