Yo no naka wa munashiki mono to shiru toki shi iyoyo masumasu kanashikari keri

世間は空しきものと知る時し
いよよますます悲しかりけり

Roma-ji: Yo no naka wa munashiki mono to shiru toki shi iyoyo masumasu kanashikari keri
English Translation: This world of ours, I
know it now for something vain,
and at that knowing
more and more, and ever more,
how deep the sorrow grows
Meaning: When I come to know that this world is empty and vain, my sorrow only grows deeper and deeper.
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 793

Headnote: "A poem by Lord Ōtomo, Governor-General of Dazaifu, in reply to tidings of death"
The poet says that on coming to know the world is empty, his grief grew deeper still. It frankly shows how an understanding of the Buddhist teaching of impermanence only intensifies sorrow rather than easing it, and it is celebrated as one of Ōtomo no Tabito's finest poems.
The Chinese text following the headnote says that misfortunes have piled up and dark tidings arrived one after another, that he weeps with a grief that breaks the heart, and that only the generous support of two friends barely keeps him alive. The left note is dated the twenty-third day of the sixth month of Jinki 5, and the poem is thought to respond to the loss of his wife, Lady Ōtomo, soon after he arrived at Dazaifu.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was the son of the Major Counselor Ōtomo no Yasumaro and the father of Ōtomo no Yakamochi. Late in the Jinki era he went down to Tsukushi as Governor-General of Dazaifu, returned to the capital in Tenpyō 2 as Major Counselor, and died the following year. Versed in Chinese letters and Daoist thought, he formed a literary circle at Dazaifu with Yamanoue no Okura and others, known as the Tsukushi poetic circle.
Placed at the head of Book Five, the poem sets the keynote of the book: impermanence and the grief of bereavement. Yamanoue no Okura's poem 893, near the end of the book, also opens with "this world," so that the book begins and ends on the same word.

First line, "yo no naka wa": a native rendering of the Buddhist term for "the world," the realm in which people live. That the opening poem of the book begins with this word signals the book's theme of gazing on impermanence.
Second line, "munashiki mono to": takes up the Buddhist view that the world is insubstantial and fleeting. The particle "to" marks what has been learned.
Third line, "shiru toki shi": the emphatic particle "shi" sharpens the gap between knowing with the mind and grieving with the heart.
Fourth line, "iyoyo masumasu": two words of the same meaning are stacked to stress a sorrow that keeps on growing.
Fifth line, "kanashikari keri": the auxiliary "keri" expresses exclamation, showing the depth of a sorrow newly realized. The poem closes by stating plainly a heart that reason cannot console.
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito
Source: Manyoshu
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