疎くなる人を何とて恨むらむ
知られず知らぬ折もありしに
知られず知らぬ折もありしに
- Roma-ji
-
Utoku naru hito o nani tote uramuramu shirarezu shiranu ori mo arishi ni
- English Translation
-
Why should I resent
one who's growing distant now?
There was once a time
when we two had never known
nor been known by one another.
- Meaning
- Why do I resent the one who is drifting away from me? There was once a time when we neither knew nor were known by each other.
- Commentary
-
Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1297
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the seventh poem of the sequence on love being forgotten. Why do I resent the one who is drifting away, the speaker asks, when once we did not know each other at all? As with the preceding poem, the headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances are not recorded.
The author, "Saigyō the Priest," is Saigyō. His lay name was Satō Norikiyo; he served as a guard of the north quarter under Retired Emperor Toba, took holy orders at twenty-three, and traveled the provinces composing poetry.
The main text has the mark "〈墨〉°" at its beginning, but it is not part of the poem and has been removed.
The first line, "utoku naru," means "growing distant." It restates the "forgetting" of the preceding poems in the gentler phrase of growing distant.
In the second line, "hito o nani tote," "nani tote" means "why."
In the third line, "uramuramu," "ramu" conjectures a cause: "why do I resent?" The poem breaks after this line. It takes the form of one self questioning the other self who resents.
The fourth line, "shirarezu shiranu," means "neither known by the other nor knowing the other." The same verb "shiru" is repeated in passive and active forms.
The last line, "ori mo arishi ni," means "though there was such a time." By offering the reasoning that the two have only returned to being strangers as before they met, the poem calms the preceding poem's grief at not even being able to die, by questioning resentment itself.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Wasurenaba ikeramu mono ka to omoishi ni sore mo kanawanu kono yo narikeri
- Next Poem
-
Ima zo shiru omoiide yo to chigirishi wa wasuremu tote no nasake narikeri