Yo no naka ni nao mo furu kana shiguretsutsu kumoma no tsuki no ide ya to omoedo

English Translation

In this world of ours
still I linger on, like rain;
the showers keep falling,
and like the moon between the clouds
I think, "Now let me go forth"—and yet

Meaning

Still I linger on in this world, as the winter showers keep falling—though, like the moon slipping out between the clouds, I think again and again that I should leave it all behind.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 583

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fourteenth poem of the winter-showers sequence. While the showers keep falling, the speaker thinks of leaving the world as the moon slips out between the clouds, yet laments that she still lingers on in it. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Izumi Shikibu," is Izumi Shikibu. A daughter of the Governor of Echizen Ōe no Masamune, she became the wife of the Governor of Izumi Tachibana no Michisada, from which she took the name Izumi Shikibu, and later served Empress Shōshi.
The scene is a night of winter showers, and the place is somewhere the moon can be seen between the clouds.
The direct occasion is not recorded.

The first line, "yo no naka ni," means "in this world," and the poem opens with a lament over the speaker's own lot before turning to the showers.
In the second line, "nao mo furu kana," "furu" carries both "to pass one's days in the world" and the "falling" of the showers. The poem breaks after the second line with the exclamatory particle "kana."
The third line, "shiguretsutsu," means that the showers fall again and again, moving from the "falling" of the second line into the scene of showers. It repeats the first line of 563 in this book.
The fourth line, "kumoma no tsuki no," refers to the moon appearing between the clouds. The moon emerging from the shower clouds becomes a figure for leaving the world.
In the last line, "ide ya to omoedo," "ide" carries both the moon's "coming out" and leaving the world. "Do" is a concessive conjunctive particle, "though I think so," and turns back to "nao mo furu kana" in the second line in an inverted structure. The poem lays a lament of lingering in the world over the scene of showers, and the next poem, 584, likewise overlays sleeves of brooding thought on a sky of showers.

Author

Izumi Shikibu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other