身を捨てて行きやしにけむ思ふより
外なるものは心なりけり
外なるものは心なりけり
- Roma-ji
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Mi o sutete yuki ya shinikemu omou yori hoka naru mono wa kokoro narikeri
- English Translation
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Leaving me behind,
has it gone off on its own?
More than I intend,
the thing that wanders off
is the heart, I've come to know.
- Meaning
- Has my heart left my body behind and gone off to you? The thing that goes beyond what I intend, I now know, is the heart.
- Commentary
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Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 977
Headnote: "Composed when I had not visited someone for a long time and we reproached each other"
This was composed when the poet, having failed to visit someone for a long time, was reproached. He says that it was only his body that stayed away; his heart must have left him and gone to her, and he excuses himself by saying that the heart does not obey one's will.
Through the wit of separating heart from body, the poem conveys both an apology for his silence and his feelings for her. Following the previous poem, 976, poems on relationships where visits have ceased are placed together.
The author, "Mitsune," is Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, one of the compilers of the Kokin Wakashū and one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The first line, "leaving me behind," means abandoning the body; its subject is the "heart" of the lower verse.
The second line, "has it gone off on its own?", uses ya (interrogative), shi (the verb su), ni (perfective) and kemu (conjecture about the past), completing the ya construction. The poem breaks after this line.
The third line, "more than I intend," means beyond what one thinks.
The fourth line, "the thing that wanders off," means that which lies outside one's intention.
The last line, "is the heart," uses keri to express realization.
- Author
- Oshikochi no Mitsune
- Source
- Kokin Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Mizu no omo ni ouru satsuki no ukikusa no uki koto are ya ne o taete konu
- Next Poem
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Kimi ga omoi yuki to tsumoraba tanomarezu haru yori nochi wa araji to omoeba