Imasara ni nani oiizuramu take no ko no uki fushi shigeki yo to wa shirazu ya - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

今更に何生ひ出づらむ竹の子の
憂きふし繁きよとは知らずや

Roma-ji: Imasara ni nani oiizuramu take no ko no uki fushi shigeki yo to wa shirazu ya
English Translation: Why now, after all,
should it sprout and grow at all,
this bamboo shoot?
Does it not know it's a world
thick with joints of bitterness?
Meaning: Why should this little bamboo shoot come forth now? Does it not know that this is a world as full of bitter moments as bamboo is of joints?
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 957

Headnote: "Composed on seeing a small child at a time when I was sunk in brooding"
Seeing a small child while sunk in brooding, the poet laments: why should one be born into a world so full of pain? Likening the child to a bamboo shoot and overlapping the joints of bamboo with the painful moments of life, the poem expresses both concern for the child's future and the poet's own grief.
The next poem, 958, also sings of the "bitter joints" of bamboo, so poems using bamboo imagery are placed together.
The author, "Ōshikōchi Mitsune" as written partly in kana, is Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, one of the compilers of the Kokin Wakashū, who held posts such as Junior Clerk of Kai and Senior Secretary of Izumi. He is counted among the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

The first line, "why now, after all," means "at this late date."
The second line, "should it sprout and grow at all," overlaps a bamboo shoot coming up with a child being born and growing. The poem breaks after this line.
The third line, "this bamboo shoot," is a figure for the small child.
The fourth line, "thick with joints of bitterness," contains the pivot word fushi, both the "joint" of bamboo and an "occasion"; it is an associated word for bamboo.
The last line, "does it not know it's a world," contains the pivot word yo, both "world" and the section of bamboo between joints.
Author: Oshikochi no Mitsune
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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