Nuru ga uchi ni miru o nomi ya wa yume to iwamu hakanaki yo o mo utsutsu to wa mizu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

寝るがうちに見るをのみやは夢と言はむ
はかなき世をもうつつとは見ず

Roma-ji: Nuru ga uchi ni miru o nomi ya wa yume to iwamu hakanaki yo o mo utsutsu to wa mizu
English Translation: Should I only call
what I see while I am sleeping
by the name of dream?
This fleeting world, too, I cannot
look upon as something real.
Meaning: Should I call only what I see while sleeping a dream? No—this fleeting world, too, I cannot regard as real.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Poems of Lament 835

Headnote: "Composed when someone he had known well passed away"
This poem was composed when a close acquaintance died. The poet says that what is seen in sleep is not the only dream; this fleeting world too cannot be taken as real. Through a death, he sees the transience of this world as no different from a dream.
It is the third of the poems on dream and reality beginning with 833 in this book, and it closes the sequence.
The author, Mibu no Tadamine, was one of the compilers of the Kokinshū, of low rank but known for his poetic talent. He is one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry.

The first line, "while asleep," means "during sleep."
The second line, "only what I see," takes the particle yawa, which expresses a rhetorical question.
The third line, "shall I call a dream," closes in the attributive mu after yawa, forming the rhetorical "Shall I call it a dream? No." The poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "this fleeting world too," uses mo to place the transient world on a level with dreams.
The last line, "I do not see as real," contrasts with "I had believed there was something real" in the preceding poem and brings the sequence to a close.
Author: Mibu no Tadamine
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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