つくづくと思へば悲しいつまでか
人のあはれをよそに聞くべき
人のあはれをよそに聞くべき
- Roma-ji
-
Tsukuzuku to omoeba kanashi itsu made ka hito no aware o yoso ni kikubeki
- English Translation
-
When I think it through,
how sad it is—for how long
can I still hear
of others' sorrows as though
they were no concern of mine?
- Meaning
- When I think it through deeply, it is sad—for how long can I go on hearing of others' deaths as though they had nothing to do with me?
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Lament Poems 839
Headnote: "On the heart of impermanence."
This is the first poem of the sequence that draws impermanence close to one's own self. It says that thinking it through is sad, and asks how long one can hear of others' deaths as no concern of one's own. According to the headnote, it was composed on "the heart of impermanence."
The son of Palace Minister Sanjō Kinnori, the author rose to Minister of the Left and later took holy orders. He left the diary Gumaiki.
The scene and place are not recorded.
The direct occasion is composing on the topic "the heart of impermanence."
The first line, "tsukuzuku to," means "deeply, earnestly."
In the second line, "omoeba kanashi," "ba" is a conjunctive of sequence, meaning "when I think it through, it is sad." The poem pauses after the second line.
In the third line, "itsu made ka," "ka" is a rhetorical binding particle, completed by the attributive "beki" in the last line. It means "for how long could I? Not for long."
In the fourth line, "hito no aware o," "aware" means the sorrowful event of someone's death.
In the last line, "yoso ni kikubeki," "yoso" means what has nothing to do with oneself. It asks for how long one can go on hearing of others' deaths as someone else's affair. Like 832 of this book, which sang of people who wear a knowing look yet do not know the law of death, it is a poem that tries to accept death as one's own. It also echoes "kyō no aware wa asu no waga mi o" in 818 of this book, in seeing another's death as one's own tomorrow. The next poem, 840, is a poem in which a parent who has lost a child laments his own future.
- Author
- Sanjō Sanefusa
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- Only the image left behind by the one gone close beside you— how surely you must long for that dear one, I know.
- If only I could put in words as much sorrow as in my heart I feel for you, then surely I would have come to call.
- Left behind to live, how sad it is to see it— that fleeting life, why did I trust it to be the heir of my sorrowful self?
- Thinking on and on of this and that, I came and looked, and found that on this day this year too my sleeves are wet with tears.