世の中を思へばなべて散る花の
わが身をさてもいづちかもせん
わが身をさてもいづちかもせん
- Roma-ji
-
Yo no naka o omoeba nabete chiru hana no waga mi o sate mo izuchi ka mo sen
- English Translation
-
When I think upon
this world, all of it is like
the scattering blossoms—
and this self of mine, then, where
am I to take it at last?
- Meaning
- When I think about this world, all of it is like scattering blossoms—and where, then, am I to take this self of mine?
- Commentary
-
Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1471
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the twenty-first poem of the sequence on the cherry. When the poet thinks of this world, everything is like scattering blossoms, and he asks where he is to take such a self. The headnote continues from the preceding poem, "topic unknown," and records nothing of the circumstances of composition.
The author, "Saigyō Hōshi," had the lay name Satō Norikiyo. He served Retired Emperor Toba as a warrior of the North Guard, but took the tonsure at twenty-three and traveled through the provinces, leaving many poems.
The first line, "yo no naka o," presents the whole world as the object of his thought.
In the second line, "omoeba nabete," "nabete" means "all" or "without exception." Everything in the world is overlaid with the scattering blossoms.
In the third line, "chiru hana no," "no" means "like," modifying "waga mi" in the fourth line. It binds the scattering blossoms and the poet's self together as equally fleeting.
In the fourth line, "waga mi o sate mo," "sate mo" means "and so" or "even so." Following the preceding poem, which resented a self that gazed on blossoms, this poem asks where a self that scatters like the blossoms is to go.
The last line, "izuchi ka mo sen," closes the kakari-musubi of the particle "ka" with the attributive form "n." It laments a self with nowhere to go: "where shall I take it?"
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Shiba no to ni niowan hana wa samo araba are nagametekeri na urameshi no mi ya
- Next Poem
-
Mi wa tometsu kokoro wa okuru yamazakura kaze no tayori ni omoi okose yo