晴れ曇り時雨は定めなきものを
ふり果てぬるは我が身なりけり
ふり果てぬるは我が身なりけり
- Roma-ji
-
Hare kumori shigure wa sadame naki mono o furihatenuru wa waga mi narikeri
- English Translation
-
Now clear, now clouded,
the showers keep no steady course,
and yet the one
that has fallen quite, grown old,
has been none other than myself
- Meaning
- Now clearing, now clouding over, the winter showers never keep to any fixed course—yet what has fallen away for good, grown utterly old, is none other than I myself.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 586
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventeenth poem of the winter-showers sequence. Unlike the showers, which alternate between sun and cloud without any fixed pattern, the speaker's own self has grown utterly old, and the poem laments old age. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Dōin Hōshi," is Dōin. His lay name was Fujiwara no Atsuyori; he took holy orders late in life under the name Dōin. He is known for his deep devotion to poetry, which lasted into extreme old age.
The scene is the season of winter showers, and no place is specified.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The first line, "hare kumori," means "now clear, now clouded," showing the shifting sky of the showers.
The second line, "shigure wa sadame," runs on into the third line to mean "the showers have no fixed course."
In the third line, "naki mono o," "mono o" is a concessive conjunctive particle: "though they have no fixed course." The single word "sadame naki" spans the second and third lines.
In the fourth line, "furihatenuru wa," "furi" carries both the showers "falling" to an end and the body "growing old" to the end. "Nuru" is the attributive form of the perfective auxiliary "nu."
The last line, "waga mi narikeri," means "it was my own self," with "keri" expressing the exclamation of awareness. The showers fall and stop without any fixed pattern, yet what has fallen away completely is the speaker's own self, and by this reasoning the poem laments old age. Following 583 in this book, which sang of a self lingering, "furu," in the world, this poem likewise uses the double meaning of "furu" to overlay the showers with the speaker's own life.
- Author
- Dōin
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Of all times, just now, drifting clouds hang in the gaze of my long rains of brooding, and my sleeves become as one with them, wet with showers on and on
- Akishino— in the village by the foothills are the showers falling now? Over the peak of Ikoma the clouds are hanging low
- Now once again, though no leaves are scattering, something passes for the showers— falling alone, growing old, the wind in the garden pines
- In fair Yoshino the mountains cloud over and the snow comes down, while in the village at their foot the winter showers fall and fall