Naki hito o shinobikanete wa wasuregusa ōkaru yado ni yadori o zo suru

English Translation

Unable to bear
remembering the dead,
where forget-grass
grows thick about the house,
here I have come to stay.

Meaning

Unable to bear my longing for the dead, I have come to stay in this house where forget-grass grows so thick.

Commentary

Book Eight Lament Poems 853

Headnote: "Sent to the master of the house when, in mourning, I was staying at someone's house, and much forget-grass grew there."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence of lament poems by poets of older times. It says that, unable to bear remembering the dead, he is staying at a house where much forget-grass grows. According to the headnote, while in mourning he stayed at someone's house, and since much forget-grass grew there, he sent this poem to the master of the house.
A poet of the early Heian period, the author rose to Middle Counselor and was called the Tsutsumi Middle Counselor because his residence stood by the embankment of the Kamo River. He was the great-grandfather of Murasaki Shikibu. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The scene is a time of mourning, set at another person's house.
The direct occasion is that much forget-grass grew at the house where he stayed while in mourning.
Forget-grass is the daylily, which was believed to make one forget one's sorrows when worn.

The first line, "naki hito o," means "the one who is gone."
In the second line, "shinobikanete wa," "shinobu" means to remember with longing, and "kane" means to be unable to. It means "unable to bear the grief of remembering."
The third line, "wasuregusa," is the grass said to make one forget sorrow, leading into "ōkaru yado" in the fourth line.
The fourth line, "ōkaru yado ni," means "at a house where it grows thick."
In the last line, "yadori o zo suru," "zo" is an emphatic binding particle, completed by the attributive "suru." The words "yado," house, and "yadori," lodging, are repeated. He says, drawing on the garden of the master's house, that he is staying at a house full of forget-grass because he wishes to forget his grief. Following the preceding poem, 852, which sang of a person in mourning dress, here the grief of one in mourning is entrusted to forget-grass. Where many poems since 757 of this book remember the dead through keepsakes, here a heart that seeks to forget is sung.

Author

Fujiwara no Kanesuke

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other