世を捨つる心はなほぞなかりける
憂きを憂しとは思ひ知れども
憂きを憂しとは思ひ知れども
- Roma-ji
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Yo o sutsuru kokoro wa nao zo nakarikeru uki o ushi to wa omoishiredomo
- English Translation
-
A heart to cast off
the world, after all, I find
I never had at all,
though I have come to know too well
that what is bitter is bitter.
- Meaning
- I find that, after all, I never had the heart to cast off the world, though I know full well that what is bitter is bitter.
- Commentary
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Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1769
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On the feeling of personal grievance, when composing a fifty-poem sequence."
This is the fifth of the poems on a heart that loathes the world yet cannot cast it off. Though he knows the world's bitterness to the bone, he finds he never truly had the heart to renounce it. He gazes at his own heart, seeing that knowing bitterness and abandoning the world are different things.
The author, "Provisional Middle Counselor Kanemune," is Fujiwara no Kanemune. A son of Fujiwara no Tadachika, he rose to Provisional Middle Counselor.
The first line, "yo o sutsuru," means "casting off the world and taking vows."
In the second line, "kokoro wa nao zo," "zo" is a kakari particle reaching to the close of the third line; "nao" means "after all."
The third line, "nakarikeru," closes the kakari-musubi of "zo" with "keru," the attributive of "keri." He realizes that he had no such heart after all, and the poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "uki o ushi to wa," means "that the bitter is bitter." Repeating "uki" and "ushi," he dwells on bitterness again and again.
In the last line, "omoishiredomo," "domo" is concessive. Through inversion it shows afterward the contradiction of knowing yet being unable to renounce. It echoes the preceding poem's valuing of a life bought with sorrow.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Kanemune
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
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Nagaraete yo ni sumu kai wa nakeredomo uki ni kaetaru inochi narikeri
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Suteyaranu waga mi zo tsuraki saritomo to omou kokoro ni michi o makasete