淡雪のたまればかてに砕けつつ
わが物思ひのしげきころかな
わが物思ひのしげきころかな
- Roma-ji
-
Awayuki no tamareba kate ni kudaketsutsu waga mono omoi no shigeki koro kana
- English Translation
-
As the light snow piles
and cannot bear its weight
it breaks and falls apart
so heavy are my thoughts
of love in these days
- Meaning
- As the light snow, when it piles up, cannot bear its weight and breaks apart, so my heart breaks as my thoughts of love grow ever thicker these days.
- Commentary
-
Book Eleven Love Poems I 550
Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poem overlays the light snow that piles up and breaks under its own weight with the poet, whose heart seems about to break as thoughts of love accumulate. The season has moved on from the autumn poems, and it sings of love through the image of winter snow. The closing poem of the book that follows also sings of snow, so that the book ends with two poems of snow.
First line, "As the light snow piles": awayuki is soft snow that melts easily. Together with "falling snow" in the next poem, 551, it places poems of winter snow at the end of the book.
Second line, "and cannot bear its weight": tamareba kate ni means unable to bear it when it piles up, with kate ni meaning unable to.
Third line, "it breaks and falls apart": kudaketsutsu means breaking again and again, overlaying the snow breaking and falling with a heart breaking. Lines one through three work as a preface.
Fourth line, "so heavy are my thoughts": waga mono omoi no means my brooding over love.
Fifth line, "of love in these days": shigeshi means many or incessant, and kana is an exclamatory final particle. It shares the word with the last line of the next poem, "koi no shigeki ni."
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Hitome moru ware ka wa ayana hanasusuki nado ka ho ni idete koizu shi mo aramu
- Next Poem
-
Okuyama no suga no ne shinogi furu yuki no kenu to ka iwamu koi no shigeki ni