Yo ni fureba koto no ha shigeki kuretake no uki fushi goto ni uguisu zo naku - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

よにふれば言の葉繁き呉竹の
憂きふしごとに鶯ぞなく

Roma-ji: Yo ni fureba koto no ha shigeki kuretake no uki fushi goto ni uguisu zo naku
English Translation: Living in the world,
thick are the leaves of gossip,
and on the bamboo
at every bitter joint
the warbler is crying.
Meaning: Living in this world, I am beset by people's talk, thick as the leaves of the bamboo; at every bitter turn I cry, as the warbler sings at every joint of the bamboo.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 958

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet feels hemmed in by gossip and weeps at every painful turn, and entrusts this feeling to the image of a bush warbler singing at each joint of a leafy kuretake bamboo. The warbler's singing is overlapped with the poet's own crying.
Placed beside the previous poem, 957, it shares bamboo imagery, and its opening words, "living in the world," are the same as those of 951 in this book.
The author is recorded as anonymous, and the name has not come down to us.

The first line, "living in the world," contains the pivot word yo, both "world" and the "section" of bamboo. It is the same opening as 951 in this book.
The second line, "thick are the leaves of gossip," plays on koto no ha, "words," literally "leaves of speech"; "leaves" are associated with bamboo.
The third line, "on the bamboo," names kuretake, said to be another name for the henon bamboo. Bamboo imagery runs from the second line to the last.
The fourth line, "at every bitter joint," contains the pivot word fushi, "joint" and "occasion."
The last line, "the warbler is crying," contains the pivot word naku, both the warbler's singing and a person's weeping; the emphatic zo governs the attributive ending.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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