我のみや世をうぐひすとなきわびむ
人の心の花と散りなば
人の心の花と散りなば
- Roma-ji
-
Ware nomi ya yo o uguisu to nakiwabimu hito no kokoro no hana to chirinaba
- English Translation
-
Shall I alone then,
like the warbler, find this world
bitter, and weep on,
when the flower of your heart
has scattered all away?
- Meaning
- When the flower of your heart has scattered, shall I alone weep in grief, finding the world bitter, like the bush warbler that cries over fallen blossoms?
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 798
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
The poem asks whether, once the flower of the lover's heart has scattered, the speaker alone will weep like a bush warbler mourning fallen blossoms. Taking up the "flower of the heart" of the preceding poem, it imagines the speaker after the flower has fallen as the warbler crying over scattered blossoms.
In the first line ya asks a question resolved by the attributive mu in the third line: shall I alone? It shows the loneliness of grieving while the other is untroubled.
In the second line uguisu is a pivot word, containing uku, "finding bitter," and naming the bush warbler.
In the third line naki means both the bird singing and the speaker weeping, and wabu means to grieve. The poem breaks here.
The fourth line repeats the fourth line of the preceding poem, continuing the image of the heart as a flower.
In the last line naba is a perfective hypothetical: if it has scattered. By inversion it is placed at the end, giving the condition for the lament.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Iro miede utsurou mono wa yo no naka no hito no kokoro no hana ni zo arikeru
- Next Poem
-
Omou tomo karenamu hito o ikaga semu akazu chirinuru hana to koso mime