Arishi yo ni shibashi mo mide wa nakarishi o aware to bakari iite yaminuru

English Translation

While you were alive,
not for a moment could I
leave you unseen—
yet now "alas" is all
I say, and there it ends.

Meaning

While you lived, I could not bear to go even a little while without seeing you—yet now all I can do is say "alas," and there it ends.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 845

Headnote: "Composed after Nōin Hōshi had died."
This is the second poem of the sequence lamenting the deaths of those close. It says that in life he could not go even a little while without seeing the other, yet now all he can do is say "alas," and there it ends. According to the headnote, it was composed after Nōin Hōshi died.
The son of Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Kanetaka, the author was a poet who served as Governor of Sanuki and in other posts. "Nōin Hōshi," whose lay name was Tachibana no Nagayasu, was a poet who took holy orders and traveled through the provinces visiting places famed in poetry.
The scene is the time after Nōin's death, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion is the death of Nōin, with whom he had been close.

The first line, "arishi yo ni," means "while you were alive."
In the second line, "shibashi mo mide wa," "shibashi" means "a little while." "De" is a negative connective, meaning "without seeing you even a little while."
In the third line, "nakarishi o," "o" is concessive, meaning "though I could not." With the second line, it speaks of a closeness in life that could not bear any time apart.
In the fourth line, "aware to bakari," "aware" is the cry "alas." "Bakari" is restrictive, meaning "only saying alas."
In the last line, "iite yaminuru," "yamu" means to come to an end. "Nuru" is the attributive form of the completion auxiliary, closing with a lingering resonance. Even one he met so closely can, in death, draw from him only a cry of "alas." Where the preceding poem, 844, sang of a scent left as a child's keepsake, this poem sings of the emptiness in which nothing remains but words of lament. Where in 823 of this book Nōin mourned the death of Ōe no Yoshitoki, here Nōin himself is the one mourned.

Author

Fujiwara no Kanefusa

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other