Yo o somuku kata wa izuku ni arinubeshi ōharayama wa sumiyokariki ya - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

世を背く方はいづくにありぬべし
大原山は住みよかりきや

Roma-ji: Yo o somuku kata wa izuku ni arinubeshi ōharayama wa sumiyokariki ya
English Translation: To renounce the world,
somewhere surely there must be
a place for doing so—
but Mount Ōhara, tell me,
was it good to live in there?
Meaning: There must be somewhere to renounce the world—but tell me, was Mount Ōhara good to live in?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1640

Headnote: "Sent on hearing that the Nun of Shōshōi had come out from Ōhara."
This is the second poem of the sequence on mountains of renunciation. There must be some place for renouncing the world, the poet says, and asks whether Mount Ōhara was good to live in. According to the headnote, it was sent on hearing that the Nun of Shōshōi had come out from Ōhara.
The author, "Izumi Shikibu," was a daughter of Ōe no Masamune and served Empress Shōshi. She was so called because she became the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi.
Ōhara lies in Yamashiro Province, in present-day Sakyō Ward, Kyoto. It was known as a village where those fleeing the world lived hidden. The next poem, 1641, is the reply of the Nun of Shōshōi.

The first line, "yo o somuku," begins with the same line as the preceding poem, meaning "to renounce the world."
The second line, "kata wa izuku ni," means "the way or place, where."
The third line, "arinubeshi," means "there must surely be." The poem breaks here after the third line.
The fourth line, "ōharayama wa," sets up as the topic Mount Ōhara, where the nun had lived.
The last line, "sumiyokariki ya," means "was it good to live in?" The past "ki" with the interrogative "ya" pointedly asks the nun, who has left Ōhara, how she found living there. Taking up the deep mountains that proved a place of brooding in the preceding poem, it asks whether places of renunciation are not also hard to live in.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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