今までに忘れぬ人は世にもあらじ
おのがさまざま年の経ぬれば
おのがさまざま年の経ぬれば
- Roma-ji
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Ima made ni wasurenu hito wa yo ni mo araji ono ga samazama toshi no henureba
- English Translation
-
Until this day
who would still remember?
No one in this world;
each has gone his separate way
with the passing of the years
- Meaning
- No one in this world would still remember until now; we have each gone our separate ways as the years went by.
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 1366
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the fifth poem of the sequence on cruelty and forgetting. Since each has spent the years apart, the speaker says, surely no one still remembers. 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.
This poem appears in Episode 86 of The Tales of Ise, where a young man and woman part without fulfilling their love out of deference to their parents, and years later the man sends this poem to her.
The first line, "ima made ni," means "until now."
The second line, "wasurenu hito wa," means "one who has not forgotten." It takes up the laments over forgetting in the preceding poems.
In the third line, "yo ni mo araji," "ji" is a negative conjecture: "there is surely no one in this world." The poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "ono ga samazama," means "each in his own way," referring to the two having led separate lives.
The last line, "toshi no henureba," means "since the years have passed." Inverted from the third line, it sets afterward the reason why forgetting is only natural. Where 1363 said the speaker simply could not forget, this poem says the years make people forget, showing the reverse side of an unforgettable love.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Izukata ni yuki kakurenan yo no naka ni mi no areba koso hito mo tsurakere
- Next Poem
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Tamamizu o te ni musubite mo kokoromin nuruku wa ishi no naka mo tanomaji