寝ぬる夜の夢をはかなみまどろめば
いやはかなにもなりまさるかな
いやはかなにもなりまさるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Nenuru yo no yume o hakanami madoromeba iya hakana ni mo narimasaru kana
- English Translation
-
Since that night we slept
was a dream so fleeting,
I drifted into sleep,
but it only grew more fleeting,
ever more so than before
- Meaning
- Our night together was as fleeting as a dream, so I dozed off hoping to dream it again, but everything only grew more fleeting still.
- Commentary
-
Book Thirteen Love Poems III 644
Headnote: "Composed and sent the morning after meeting someone."
Because the night of meeting was as fleeting as a dream, the poet dozes off to meet again in a dream, only to find the sense of fleetingness grows stronger. According to the headnote, it was a morning-after poem sent the day after meeting a woman. Repeating hakana, it conveys a heart unsure whether the meeting itself was a dream.
The author, recorded as Narihira Ason, is Ariwara no Narihira. He was the fifth son of Prince Abo and is counted among the Six Poetic Immortals and the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The poem also appears in section 103 of The Tales of Ise. From here, poems on the border between dream and waking follow.
The first line, "nenuru yo no," means "of the night we slept together," using nuru, the attributive of the perfective nu.
The second line, "yume o hakanami," means "since the dream was fleeting," the suffix mi on the adjective stem giving the reason.
The third line, "madoromeba," means "when I doze," expressing the wish to see the dream again.
The fourth line, "iya hakana ni mo," means "ever more fleeting," repeating hakana from the second line for emphasis.
The final line, "narimasaru kana," means "how it grows ever more so," closing with the exclamatory kana.
- Author
- Ariwara no Narihira
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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