荒磯海の浜の真砂と頼めしは
忘るることの数にぞありける
忘るることの数にぞありける
- Roma-ji
-
Ariso umi no hama no masago to tanomeshi wa wasururu koto no kazu ni zo arikeru
- English Translation
-
When you had me trust
your love was like the sands
on the rough sea's shore,
it was the count, I find, of all
the times you would forget me
- Meaning
- When you made me trust that your love was as countless as the sands on the shore of the rough sea, what you were really counting were the times you would forget me.
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 818
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
The lover's promise of love as countless as the sands of the shore turned out, the speaker bitterly remarks, to be the count of times he would forget her. The countless sands are turned from a figure of devoted love into one of forgetting, expressing the bitterness of a betrayed love.
The first line names a sea with rough rocky shores. It is hypermetric at six syllables.
The second line names the fine sand of the beach, a figure for the countless.
In the third line tanome, the lower bigrade tanomu, means "to make someone trust," and shi is past attributive: what you made me trust.
The fourth line, "forgetting," reverses the meaning of the sands from love to oblivion.
The last line resolves zo with the attributive of keri, closing with the realization that it was the number of forgettings.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
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