思ふことなど問ふ人のなかるらむ
仰げば空に月ぞさやけき
仰げば空に月ぞさやけき
- Roma-ji
-
Omou koto nado tou hito no nakaru ramu aogeba sora ni tsuki zo sayakeki
- English Translation
-
Why is there no one
who asks me what it is
I brood upon?
When I look up, in the sky
the moon is shining clear.
- Meaning
- Why is there no one to ask what I brood over? When I look up, the moon is shining clear in the sky.
- Commentary
-
Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1782
Headnote: "From among fifty poems."
This is the second of the poems on the heart through the moon, and the first of three by Jien. Why does no one ask what he broods over? Looking up, he sees the moon shining clear. He tells of gazing up at the clear moon while carrying a sorrow no one asks about. According to the headnote, it comes from a set of fifty poems.
The author, "Former Archbishop Jien," is Jien. A son of Fujiwara no Tadamichi and younger brother of Kujō Kanezane, he served four times as Tendai abbot and wrote the historical treatise Gukanshō.
The first line, "omou koto," is what he broods over. In contrast to 1754 of this book, "if someone were to ask what he broods on," here it is the absence of anyone to ask that is lamented.
In the second line, "nado tou hito no," "nado" means "why."
In the third line, "nakaru ramu," "ramu" is an auxiliary conjecturing a cause; with "nado" it means "why is there no one?" The poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "aogeba sora ni," means "when I look up, in the sky," showing him turning his gaze from people to the heavens.
The last line, "tsuki zo sayakeki," closes the kakari-musubi of "zo" with the attributive form of the adjective "sayakeki." Though no one asks, the moon shines clear, leaving the sense that the moon alone knows his heart.
- Author
- Jien
- Source
- Shin Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Tsuki no yuku yama ni kokoro o okuriirete yami naru ato no mi o ika ni semu
- Next Poem
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Ika ni shite ima made yo ni wa ariake no tsukisenu mono o itou kokoro wa