Oshinabete ukimi wa sa koso narumigata michihiru shio no kawaru nomi ka wa - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

をしなべて憂き身はさこそなるみ潟
満ち干る潮の変はるのみかは

Roma-ji: Oshinabete ukimi wa sa koso narumigata michihiru shio no kawaru nomi ka wa
English Translation: All alike, just so,
this sorrowful self becomes—
at Narumi Bay,
is it only the ebb and flow
of the tide that ever changes?
Meaning: All sorrowful lives become like this; at Narumi Bay, is it only the flooding and ebbing tide that changes?
Commentary: Book Twenty Buddhist Poems 1945

Headnote: "On the meaning of 'The water's edge is never full.'"
This is the first poem in the sequence of poems by various poets on phrases from the scriptures. Just as the tide at Narumi Bay floods and ebbs, the sorrowful self, too, changes without constancy. According to the headnote, it was composed on the meaning of the scriptural phrase "The water's edge is never full."
In the tide that fills only to ebb again, the poet sees the instability of a human life that is never satisfied, and laments impermanence.
The author, "Sutoku-in Gyoka," was the seventy-fifth emperor, first son of Emperor Toba. Defeated in the Hōgen Disturbance, he was exiled to Sanuki and died there. He ordered the compilation of the Shika Wakashū.
Narumi Bay is a poetic place in Owari Province, a tidal flat that lay around present-day Midori Ward, Nagoya. It is often sung together with the ebb and flow of the tide.

The first line, "oshinabete," means "all alike." It opens with the same line as the preceding poem, so the arrangement passes by the same word from Jien's sequence to Retired Emperor Sutoku's poem.
The second line, "ukimi wa sa koso," means "this sorrowful self, just so," strengthened by the particle "koso."
In the third line, "narumigata," "naru" is a pivot word joining "to become so" and the place name Narumi. The poem breaks here, and the resolution of "koso" flows through the embedded "naru."
The fourth line, "michihiru shio no," is the tide that floods and ebbs, showing as a scene the scripture's "never full."
The last line, "kawaru nomi ka wa," is a rhetorical question with "ka wa": is it only the tide that changes? No, the self changes too—overlaying tide and self.
Author: Retired Emperor Sutoku
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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