Mishi yume o wasururu toki wa nakeredomo aki no nezame wa ge ni zo kanashiki

English Translation

The dream that I saw
there is never a time
that I forget it,
yet waking in the autumn night
is sad indeed, as you say.

Meaning

There is never a time when I forget the dream I saw, yet waking in the autumn night is sad indeed, just as you say.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 791

Headnote: "Reply."
This is the seventeenth poem of the sequence remembering the dead through the things of autumn, a reply to the preceding poem. It answers that there is never a time when he forgets the dream he saw, yet waking in the autumn night is sad indeed. The headnote says "Reply," answering Inpumon'in no Tayū's poem before it.
The son of Palace Minister Minamoto no Masamichi, the author rose to Palace Minister. He wielded power as a close retainer of Retired Emperor Go-Toba and also served as a Fellow of the Bureau of Poetry.
The scene is the same autumn of the year his father Masamichi died as the preceding poem, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is the reply to the poem sent by Inpumon'in no Tayū in the preceding poem.

The first line, "mishi yume o," takes up "haru no yo no yume," the last line of the preceding poem. It speaks of his father's death as a dream once seen.
The second line, "wasururu toki wa," means "a time when I forget." To the question "ikaga omoiizuru," how do you recall it, in the preceding poem, it answers that there is no need to recall, for there is never a time he forgets.
In the third line, "nakeredomo," "domo" is concessive, meaning "though there is no such time."
The fourth line, "aki no nezame wa," takes up "aki fukaki nezame" from the first and second lines of the preceding poem.
In the last line, "ge ni zo kanashiki," "ge ni" means "truly, just as you say." "Zo" is an emphatic binding particle, completed by the attributive "kanashiki." Taking up the very words of the question, the reply grants that waking in the autumn night is sad beyond all else. The next poem, 792, also closes with the same "zo kanashiki" in "yume zo kanashiki."

Author

Minamoto no Michichika

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other