Waga mi kara uki yo no naka to nazuketsutsu hito no tame sae kanashikaruramu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

わが身から憂き世の中と名づけつつ
人のためさへ悲しかるらむ

Roma-ji: Waga mi kara uki yo no naka to nazuketsutsu hito no tame sae kanashikaruramu
English Translation: It is from myself
that I call it a bitter world,
naming it so, yet
why is it that even for
others I am filled with grief?
Meaning: It is because of my own lot that I call this a bitter world; so why is it that I grieve even for other people?
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 960

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Though the world seems painful because of the poet's own circumstances, the poet calls it "a bitter world," blaming the world, and then finds that the sorrows of others too are painful to bear. It captures how one's own grief widens into sympathy for others.
It resonates with 948 in this book, which asked whether the world's bitterness existed for the poet alone; both look at how the world's sorrows relate to the self.
The author is recorded as anonymous, and the name has not come down to us.
The third line in the text reads nazuketsutsu, "naming it," which does not match the reading line's nagekitsutsu, "lamenting." Here the text is followed.

The first line, "it is from myself," uses kara to express cause.
The second line, "that I call it a bitter world," gives the name.
The third line, "naming it so," uses tsutsu to express repeated or continuing action.
The fourth line, "even for others," uses the additive particle sae.
The last line, "I am filled with grief," uses ramu to conjecture about the cause of a present state.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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