Kazoureba toshi no nokori mo nakarikeri oinuru bakari kanashiki wa nashi

English Translation

When I count them up,
there are no days left at all
in the year's remainder—
nothing is so sorrowful
as to have grown old

Meaning

When I count, I find there is nothing left of the year at all—and nothing is as sorrowful as growing old.

Commentary

Book Six Winter Poems 702

Headnote: "Composed at the end of the year, lamenting that I had grown old."
This is the twelfth poem of the year's-end sequence. Counting, the speaker finds nothing left of the year and laments that nothing is so sorrowful as growing old. According to the headnote, it was composed at the end of the year in grief at having grown old.
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 the end of the year, and no place is specified.
The direct occasion is lamenting her own old age as the year came to an end.

The first line, "kazoureba," means "when I count them on my fingers," with "ba" attached to the perfective form expressing an established condition.
The second line, "toshi no nokori mo," means "the remaining days of the year."
The third line, "nakarikeri," means "there are none left," with "keri" expressing the exclamation of awareness. The poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "oinuru bakari," means "as much as growing old," with "nuru" as the attributive form of the perfective auxiliary "nu" and "bakari" an adverbial particle of degree.
The last line, "kanashiki wa nashi," means "nothing is so sorrowful." From the realization, reached by counting, that no days remain in the year, the thought moves to the old age that is added to the body with each turning year, and the poem states the sorrow of old age outright. It turns the headnote's "lamenting that I had grown old" directly into a poem; following the preceding poem, which saw old age in the difference between the heart of then and now, it frankly sings of the sorrow of old age itself.

Author

Izumi Shikibu

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other