Shiba no to ni niowan hana wa samo araba are nagametekeri na urameshi no mi ya - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

柴の戸ににほはん花はさもあらばあれ
ながめてけりな恨めしの身や

Roma-ji: Shiba no to ni niowan hana wa samo araba are nagametekeri na urameshi no mi ya
English Translation: The blossoms that glow
at my brushwood door—let them
be as they may be;
yet I found I'd gazed on them—
ah, this self that I resent!
Meaning: Let the blossoms glowing by my brushwood door be as they will—and yet I found myself gazing at them. How I resent this self of mine!
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1470

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the twentieth poem of the sequence on the cherry. Though he tells himself that the blossoms by his brushwood hut do not matter, the poet finds he has gazed at them and resents himself. The headnote reads "topic unknown," and records nothing of the circumstances of composition.
The author, "Former Archbishop Jien," is Jien. The son of Fujiwara no Tadamichi and younger brother of Kujō Kanezane, he served four times as head of the Tendai school and wrote the historical treatise Gukanshō. No author's name is given in the text; the poem follows the author of the preceding poem.

In the first line, "shiba no to ni," "shiba no to," a brushwood door, refers to a rough door woven of brushwood and to the hermit's hut that has one. It is the dwelling of one who has renounced the world.
The second line, "niowan hana wa," means "the blossoms that would glow," with "n" expressing a softened supposition.
The third line, "samo araba are," means "let it be as it may," a hypermetric line. It uses the same words as "samo araba are," the first line of 1463 in this book. Whereas Tsunenobu's poem said that the end of spring does not matter as long as there are unfading blossoms, this poem pushes away the blossoms themselves as not mattering.
The fourth line, "nagametekeri na," adds the exclamatory "na" to the perfective "te" and the past "keri," meaning "and yet I have gazed at them." It is surprise at himself, who, though resolved not to set his heart on blossoms, found himself absorbed in them.
The last line, "urameshi no mi ya," adds "no" to an adjective stem, lamenting "this self that I resent." It grieves over a renunciant who cannot cut off his attachment to blossoms.
Author: Jien
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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