抜き乱る人こそあるらし白玉の
間なくも散るか袖の狭きに
間なくも散るか袖の狭きに
- Roma-ji
-
Nukimidaru hito koso arurashi shiratama no ma naku mo chiru ka sode no sebaki ni
- English Translation
-
Someone, it seems,
has snapped the cord and scattered them:
the white jewels
fall without a pause, and oh,
how narrow are my sleeves!
- Meaning
- Someone must be pulling the cord and scattering the jewels: the white jewels fall without pause, and my sleeves are too narrow to catch them.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 923
Headnote: "Composed when people gathered at the foot of the Nunobiki Falls and composed poems"
Composed when people gathered at the foot of the Nunobiki Falls to compose poems. The poet fancies that someone above the falls is pulling the cord from a string of jewels and scattering them, and says his sleeves are too narrow to catch the ceaseless jewels. The beauty of the spray overlaps with the image of white jewels suggesting tears.
The author, "Narihira no Ason," is Ariwara no Narihira, son of Prince Abo, himself a son of Emperor Heizei, and one of the Six Poetic Immortals.
This poem also appears in Episode 87 of The Tales of Ise, set in the Nunobiki Falls scene beside his elder brother Yukihira's poem.
First line "nukimidaru" means pulling the cord from strung jewels and scattering them, likening the spray to falling jewels.
Second line "hito koso arurashi" closes koso with the inferential rashi; since rashi has no perfective form, it closes in its conclusive form. The poem pauses here.
Third line "shiratama no" is the same word as "taki no shiratama" in the preceding poem, 922, so the brothers' poems stand side by side with the same figure.
Fourth line "ma naku mo chiru ka" means how ceaselessly they fall, ending with the exclamatory ka; the poem pauses here.
Fifth line "sode no sebaki ni" ends by inversion: though my sleeves are narrow. Sleeves also receive tears, lending the white jewels a lingering sense of weeping.
- Author
- Ariwara no Narihira
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Kokichirasu taki no shiratama hiroiokite yo no uki toki no namida ni zo karu
- Next Poem
-
Ta ga tame ni hikite saraseru nuno nare ya yo o hete miredo toru hito mo naki