Yo no naka o tsune naki mono to ima zo shiru nara no miyako no utsurou mireba

世間を常なきものと今ぞ知る
奈良の都のうつろふ見れば

Roma-ji: Yo no naka o tsune naki mono to ima zo shiru nara no miyako no utsurou mireba
English Translation: That this world of ours
is a thing that does not last,
now at last I know—
when I see the capital of Nara
fading as the seasons turn
Meaning: Now at last I know that this world is a thing that does not endure, as I watch the capital of Nara fade and change.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1045

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Three poems composed in grief and regret over the ruins of the Nara capital [author uncertain]"
The poem says that seeing the Nara capital decline, the poet now truly understands that the world is impermanent. It links the shock and sorrow of witnessing the change in a once-flourishing capital to the larger thought of the world's impermanence.
These three poems form a sequence lamenting the Nara capital as it fell into ruin. At the end of Tenpyō 12 (740), after a progress to Ise and other provinces, Emperor Shōmu did not return to the Heijō capital but moved the capital to Kuni in Yamashiro Province. The figure of the Nara capital after its people had left lies behind these three poems.
All three poems carry the note "author uncertain" in their headnote, and the poet is unknown.

All three poems place "the capital of Nara" in their fourth line: the preceding poem, 1044, has "in the capital of Nara," this poem "of the capital of Nara," and the next poem, 1046, "the capital of Nara" as an object, so that by varying only the particle they layer their feelings for the ruined capital around the same phrase.
The first line, "That this world of ours," means "the world," presenting the state of the world that is the poem's theme.
The second line, "is a thing that does not last," means a thing that never stays unchanged, something impermanent.
The third line, "now at last I know," means "now indeed I know." Answering the emphatic particle "zo," the verb "shiru" takes its attributive form in a kakari-musubi construction. The sense breaks here, making this a poem with a pause after the third line, inverted in relation to the lower verse.
The fourth line, "when I see the capital of Nara," is the phrase shared by all three poems, and "no" marks the capital as the subject of "fading" in the final line.
The final line, "fading as the seasons turn," means "when I see it decline and change," and in an inversion it supplies afterward the reason for the "I know" of the third line. "Utsurou" recurs in Tanabe no Sakimaro's later poems, in "the great palace site would move away" (1054) and "since the courtiers have moved away" (1060), running through the closing group of the book as a word for the shifting of capitals.
Source: Manyoshu
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