白玉か何ぞと人の問ひし時
露と答へて消なましものを
露と答へて消なましものを
- Roma-ji
-
Shiratama ka nani zo to hito no toishi toki tsuyu to kotaete kenamashi mono o
- English Translation
-
"Is it a white pearl?
What is it?" she asked me then—
would that I had said
"it is dew," and like the dew
had vanished away myself.
- Meaning
- When she asked, "Is that a white pearl? What is it?"—if only I had answered, "It is dew," and vanished away like the dew myself.
- Commentary
-
Book Eight Lament Poems 851
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the third poem of the sequence of lament poems by poets of older times. It says that when someone asked whether it was a white pearl or what, he should have answered "dew" and vanished himself. The headnote continues from the preceding poem with no topic given, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The son of Prince Abo, son of Emperor Heizei, the author is one of the Six Poetic Immortals and one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The scene and place are not recorded.
The direct occasion is not recorded.
The poem also appears in section six of The Tales of Ise, where it is linked to a story in which a man steals away a woman and leads her along the Akuta River; seeing dew on the grass, she asks what it is, and afterward she is devoured by a demon and lost.
In the first line, "shiratama ka," "shiratama" is a pearl. "Ka" is interrogative, meaning "is it a pearl?"
In the second line, "nani zo to hito no," "hito" refers to the woman who was with him. "Nani zo" means "what is it?"
In the third line, "toishi toki," "shi" marks the past, meaning "when she asked."
The fourth line, "tsuyu to kotaete," means "answering that it was dew."
In the last line, "kenamashi mono o," "ke" is the continuative form of "ku," meaning the same as "kiyu," to vanish. "Na" marks completion, "mashi" is counterfactual, and "mono o" is concessive and exclamatory, meaning "would that I had vanished." Had he answered "dew" and vanished like dew himself, he would not have had to taste this grief. Following the preceding poem, 850, which lamented impermanence, here he recalls his last exchange with the one he lost. The figure of dew, found since 775 of this book, appears here as the wish that he himself had vanished with the dew.
- Author
- Ariwara no Narihira
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Other
-
- In the far heavens, in the rain, drenched and drooping, for our lord's sake not knowing moon or sun, do we go on longing still?
- The living are lost, the dead grow ever more in this world of ours— ah, until which day must I go on lamenting?
- As the years go by, so it comes to be, I see— in mourning black, is this the one I loved, they say, or is it someone else?
- Unable to bear remembering the dead, where forget-grass grows thick about the house, here I have come to stay.