我ながら心の果てを知らぬかな
捨てられぬ世のまた厭はしき
捨てられぬ世のまた厭はしき
- Roma-ji
-
Ware nagara kokoro no hate o shiranu kana suterarenu yo no mata itowashiki
- English Translation
-
Though it is my own,
I do not know where my heart
will end up at last;
the world I cannot cast away
I find loathsome all the same.
- Meaning
- Though it is my own, I cannot tell where my heart will end; the world I cannot cast away is, all the same, loathsome to me.
- Commentary
-
Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1766
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the second of the poems on a heart that loathes the world yet cannot cast it off, and the second of three by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. The world he cannot abandon is loathsome to him too, and though it is his own heart, he cannot tell where it will end. He gazes at the contradiction of a heart that both clings to and loathes the world. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Sesshō Daijō Daijin," is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. No author is named in the original; the attribution continues from the preceding poem. The son of Kujō Kanezane, he rose to Regent and Chancellor. He wrote the kana preface to the Shin Kokinshū and was also a fine calligrapher.
The first line, "ware nagara," means "though it is my own."
The second line, "kokoro no hate o," means "where my heart will end." Taking up "asking my heart" in the preceding poem, it gazes at the heart's course.
In the third line, "shiranu kana," "kana" is exclamatory. He laments that he does not know his own heart, and the poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "suterarenu yo no," means "the world I cannot cast away." "Re" is the irrealis of the potential auxiliary "ru."
The last line, "mata itowashiki," means "and yet is loathsome." Breaking off on the attributive with a sigh, it gives as the reason he cannot know his heart the contradiction of loathing what he cannot abandon.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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Ukishizumi komu yo wa sate mo ika ni zo to kokoro ni toite kotaekanenuru
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