Ika ni semu mi o ukifune no ni o omomi tsui no tomari ya izuko naru ramu - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いかにせむ身をうき舟の荷を重み
終の泊りやいづこなるらむ

Roma-ji: Ika ni semu mi o ukifune no ni o omomi tsui no tomari ya izuko naru ramu
English Translation: What am I to do?
This wretched floating boat of mine
is heavy with its load;
its final harbor at the last,
where is it that it will be?
Meaning: What am I to do? My wretched self is a floating boat heavy with its load; where will its final harbor be?
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1706

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the second of the poems that use a boat to speak of life's uncertainty. Likening his wretched self to a floating boat, he asks where it will come to its final harbor, weighed down as it is by its load. It is read as the voice of a monk who, laying the weight of his sins over the load, worries where he will go after death.
The author, "Holy Man Zōga," is Zōga. A Tendai monk of the mid-Heian period, he studied under Ryōgen on Mount Hiei and later withdrew to Tōnomine in Yamato to practice. He shunned fame and gain and was known as a holy man of many eccentricities.

The first line, "ika ni semu," means "what am I to do?" It casts out his bewilderment at once, and the poem pauses here.
In the second line, "mi o ukifune no," "uki" is a pivot word meaning both "finding oneself wretched" and "floating boat." It takes up the "floating boat" of the preceding poem and likewise makes the boat a figure for the self.
The third line, "ni o omomi," uses the pattern noun + "o" + adjective stem + "mi" to mean "because the load is heavy." The weight of sin the poet bears is laid over the cargo.
In the fourth line, "tsui no tomari ya," "tomari" is a harbor where boats anchor. "Tsui no tomari," the last harbor, is where one arrives in the end, that is, one's fate after death. "Ya" is a particle of question.
The last line, "izuko naru ramu," closes the kakari-musubi of "ya" with the attributive form of the conjectural "ramu." Asking where the boat will go, it shows his anxiety over whether he will attain rebirth in the Pure Land.
Author: Zōga
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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