Nao tanome shimejigahara no sasemogusa waga yo no naka ni aran kagiri wa - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

なを頼めしめぢが原のさせも草
わが世の中にあらんかぎりは

Roma-ji: Nao tanome shimejigahara no sasemogusa waga yo no naka ni aran kagiri wa
English Translation: Rely on me still,
O mugwort that grows upon
Shimeji's wide plain—
so long as I remain here
within this world of ours.
Meaning: Keep relying on me, you mugwort of Shimeji Plain, for as long as I remain in this world.
Commentary: Book Twenty Buddhist Poems 1916

Headnote: none
This is the first poem in the opening sequence of poems attributed to deities and eminent monks, and the opening poem of Book Twenty. It calls out to suffering beings, telling them to keep relying on the speaker for as long as the speaker remains in this world. There is no headnote; after the next poem stands a left-hand note, "These two poems are handed down as the poems of the Kiyomizu Kannon." In this text, that note is written at the head of the headnote to 1918 in this book.
The poem presents, in Kannon's own words, the vow never to abandon living beings, and so it fittingly opens the book of Buddhist poems.
No author is named in the text; according to the left-hand note, the poem is handed down as a poem of the Kiyomizu Kannon, the eleven-headed, thousand-armed Kannon enshrined as the principal image of Kiyomizu-dera in Higashiyama, Kyoto.
Shimejigahara is a poetic place name in Shimotsuke Province, thought to be near present-day Tochigi City in Tochigi Prefecture, and is paired in poetry with sasemogusa, or mugwort.
This poem lies behind Fujiwara no Mototoshi's "Chigiriokishi / sasemo ga tsuyu o / inochi nite / aware kotoshi no / aki mo inumeri" (Senzai Wakashū; Ogura Hyakunin Isshu). According to the Senzai Wakashū headnote, when Mototoshi asked Fujiwara no Tadamichi to appoint his son, the monk Kōkaku, as lecturer at the Yuima Assembly, Tadamichi promised by quoting "Shimejigahara," but the son was passed over again that year, and Mototoshi wrote his poem in reproach.

The first line, "nao tanome," is a command to keep relying, and the poem breaks after it. From the very start of the book, the Buddha speaks directly to living beings.
The second line, "shimejigahara no," sets down the poetic place name in Shimotsuke Province.
The third line, "sasemogusa," is another name for mugwort, known as sashimogusa, the plant associated with Shimejigahara. It is understood as an address to troubled beings, likened to this plant.
In the fourth line, "waga yo no naka ni," "waga" refers to Kannon. It is linked to the next poem by the shared word "yo no naka" (the world).
The last line, "aran kagiri wa," means "so long as I am in this world," and forms an inversion that returns to the opening "nao tanome."
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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