Ono no e no kuchishi mukashi wa tōkeredo arishi ni mo aranu yo o mo furu kana - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

斧の柄の朽ちし昔は遠けれど
ありしにもあらぬ世をも経るかな

Roma-ji: Ono no e no kuchishi mukashi wa tōkeredo arishi ni mo aranu yo o mo furu kana
English Translation: The tale of the axe
whose handle rotted away
is of long ago,
yet in a world not at all
as it was, I pass my days.
Meaning: The old tale of the axe handle that rotted away is far in the past—yet I, too, live on in a world utterly changed from what it was.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1672

Headnote: "In a hundred-poem sequence after Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa had passed away."
This is the first poem of a sequence of reflections longing for the past. The old tale of the axe handle that rotted away is far off, yet the poet too lives on in a world utterly changed from before. According to the headnote, it is from a hundred-poem sequence composed after the death of her father, Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
The author, "Shikishi Naishinnō," was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa and served as Kamo Priestess. She later took holy orders. She studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The first and second lines draw on a tale in the Chinese Shuyiji. Wang Zhi of the Jin, watching boys play go in the mountains, found that so much time had passed that the handle of the axe in his hand had rotted, and when he returned to his village no one knew him.

The first line, "ono no e no," means "the handle of the axe," calling up the tale of Wang Zhi in the Shuyiji.
The second line, "kuchishi mukashi wa," means "the old tale in which it rotted," indicating the story of long ages passing in an instant in the realm of immortals.
The third line, "tōkeredo," means "though it is long ago." "Do" is adversative.
The fourth line, "arishi ni mo aranu," means "not at all as it was." It is hypermetric, with eight syllables. Her own life, transformed by the loss of her father, is laid upon the changed village to which Wang Zhi returned in the tale.
The last line, "yo o mo furu kana," means "I pass my days in such a world." It closes with the exclamation "kana," contrasting the remoteness of the old tale with the nearness of the change that has befallen her.
Author: Princess Shokushi
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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