押し返し物を思ふは苦しきに
知らず顔にて世をや過ぎまし
知らず顔にて世をや過ぎまし
- Roma-ji
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Oshikaeshi mono o omou wa kurushiki ni shirazugao nite yo o ya sugimashi
- English Translation
-
Over and again
to brood on things is such pain
that I wonder if
I should, with an unknowing face,
just let my days in the world go by.
- Meaning
- Brooding on things over and over is so painful that I wonder whether I should simply pass my days in the world with a face that knows nothing.
- Commentary
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Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1767
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the third of the poems on a heart that loathes the world yet cannot cast it off, and the last of three by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. Brooding over and over is so painful that he wonders whether to live on with a face that knows nothing. After agonizing, he hesitates over whether simply to stop thinking.
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, "oshikaeshi," means "over and over," repeating the same brooding again and again.
The second line, "mono o omou wa," means "brooding on things." It takes up the questions about the heart's end and the next life in the two preceding poems.
The third line, "kurushiki ni," means "since it is painful."
The fourth line, "shirazugao nite," means "with a face that knows nothing."
In the last line, "yo o ya sugimashi," "ya" is a particle of question and "mashi" an auxiliary of hesitant intention, closing in the attributive in kakari-musubi. It shows a heart wavering over whether to do so, and closes Yoshitsune's three poems.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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Ware nagara kokoro no hate o shiranu kana suterarenu yo no mata itowashiki
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Nagaraete yo ni sumu kai wa nakeredomo uki ni kaetaru inochi narikeri