いづかたにゆき隠れなん世の中に
身のあればこそ人もつらけれ
身のあればこそ人もつらけれ
- Roma-ji
-
Izukata ni yuki kakurenan yo no naka ni mi no areba koso hito mo tsurakere
- English Translation
-
Where, then, shall I go
to hide myself away?
It is because
I still exist in this world
that his coldness wounds me so
- Meaning
- Where shall I go to hide myself? It is only because I remain in this world that his coldness hurts me.
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 1365
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on cruelty and forgetting. Because the speaker exists in this world, the beloved's coldness is felt; so the speaker wishes to go somewhere and hide. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Anonymous," indicates a poet whose name has not come down.
The first line, "izukata ni," means "in which direction."
In the second line, "yuki kakurenan," "nan" joins the irrealis of the perfective "nu" to the volitional "mu": "shall I go and hide?" The poem breaks after the second line.
The third line, "yo no naka ni," means "in this world," and includes the sense of the bond between lovers.
The fourth line, "mi no areba koso," means "precisely because I exist," and the particle "koso" governs the last line.
The last line, "hito mo tsurakere," closes the kakari-musubi of "koso" with the perfective form "tsurakere." Following the lament over the length of life in the preceding poem, it sees the very existence of the self in this world as the cause of suffering.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Inochi o ba ada naru mono to kikishikado tsuraki ga tame wa nagaku mo aru kana
- Next Poem
-
Ima made ni wasurenu hito wa yo ni mo araji ono ga samazama toshi no henureba