山の井の浅き心も思はぬに
影ばかりのみ人の見ゆらむ
影ばかりのみ人の見ゆらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Yama no i no asaki kokoro mo omowanu ni kage bakari nomi hito no miyuramu
- English Translation
-
Like a mountain spring
I do not love with a heart
shallow as its depth,
so why do I only see
your reflection and no more?
- Meaning
- My love is not shallow like the water of a mountain spring, so why is it that I see only your reflection, and never you yourself?
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 764
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
The poem laments that although the speaker's love is not shallow, the beloved appears only as an image and never truly meets him. The scene of reflections in a shallow mountain spring portrays the mismatch between depth of feeling and shallowness of meeting.
It draws on the Man'yōshū poem in Book Sixteen, "Asakayama, where even reflections show in the mountain spring, I do not love with a shallow heart," which the Kana Preface also names as a first poem for writing practice.
The first line names a shallow pool of spring water in the mountains, which leads both to "shallow" in the second line and to "reflection" in the fourth.
The second line, from the spring's shallowness, means a shallow heart, echoing the source poem.
In the third line nu ni is a negative concessive: "though I do not."
The fourth line layers a reflection on water with a remembered image, and bakari and nomi together stress "only."
In the last line ramu asks the cause: why do I see only your reflection?
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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