Yo no naka wa kazu naki mono ka haruhana no chiri no magai ni shinubeki omoeba

世間は数なきものか春花の
散りのまがひに死ぬべき思へば

Roma-ji: Yo no naka wa kazu naki mono ka haruhana no chiri no magai ni shinubeki omoeba
English Translation: This world of ours, how
it counts for nothing at all,
when I think that I
must die amid the flurry
of the scattering spring flowers
Meaning: How fleeting this world is, when I think that I must die amid the swirling of the scattering spring blossoms.
Commentary: Book Seventeen 3963

Headnote: "Envoy to a poem, with tanka, composed when I suddenly fell gravely ill and came near to the road to the Yellow Springs, setting forth my sorrow in song"
When he thinks he must die amid the swirl of falling spring flowers, how fleeting the world seems—a poem lamenting impermanence on his sickbed. This is an envoy to the chōka Yakamochi composed on the twentieth day of the second month of 747, lying gravely ill in the governor's residence in Etchū, expressing a grief so deep that he thought of death. The chōka laments that, having come down to Etchū by the sovereign's command and before much time had passed, he fell ill, thinking of his mother, his wife and his young children in the capital with no means to see them. Laying his own death over the scene of splendid spring flowers falling, he feels deeply the frailty of life.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was the son of the Major Counselor Ōtomo no Tabito. Appointed Governor of Etchū in 746, he spent five years there, later serving as Junior Counselor and Governor of Inaba before rising to Middle Counselor. He is thought to have played a central role in compiling the Man'yōshū.
The left note reads, "The above was composed in grief while lying ill at the governor's residence in the province of Etchū, on the twentieth day of the second month, spring, of the nineteenth year of Tenpyō."

First line, "yo no naka wa": "this world," the world of human life, with a Buddhist sense of impermanence behind it.
Second line, "kazu naki mono ka": kazu nashi means not worth counting, fleeting, and ka is exclamatory. The poem pauses here. In the chōka 3973 of this book, Ikenushi consoles Yakamochi with the same words, "yo no naka wa kazu naki mono zo."
Third line, "haruhana no": flowers of spring, suggesting both the prime of life and the frailty of falling.
Fourth line, "chiri no magai ni": magai is a whirling confusion in which things cannot be told apart—"amid the scattering swirl of blossoms."
Fifth line, "shinubeki omoeba": "when I think I must die," giving afterward by inversion the reason for the lament of the second line.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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