面影をあひ見し数になす時は
心のみこそしづめられけれ
心のみこそしづめられけれ
- Roma-ji
-
Omokage o aimishi kazu ni nasu toki wa kokoro nomi koso shizumerarekere
- English Translation
-
When I count your face
seen only in my mind's eye
among our meetings,
then my heart and that alone
can at last be brought to rest
- Meaning
- When I count the face that appears in my mind among the times we have actually met, then my heart alone can be calmed.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems III 1208
Headnote: "Topic unknown."
The poet says that when she counts the image of the beloved among their actual meetings, her heart alone can be calmed. Counting the remembered face of one she cannot meet as one more meeting, she finds a slight consolation in love.
The poet, Ise, was a daughter of Fujiwara no Tsugukage, Governor of Ise, and served Fujiwara no Onshi, consort of Emperor Uda. She received the emperor's favor and later bore Nakatsukasa to Prince Atsuyoshi. One of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals, she is represented in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu by "Naniwagata mijikaki ashi no fushi no ma mo."
The first line, "Omokage o," means "the face in my mind."
The second line, "aimishi kazu ni," means "among the times we have met."
The third line, "nasu toki wa," means "when I count it."
The fourth line, "kokoro nomi koso," means "my heart alone," with "koso" an emphatic binding particle. Like "kokoro narikeri" in the last line of 1213 of this book, it sets the heart apart from the body.
The last line, "shizumerarekere," means "can be calmed," closing the "koso" of the fourth line with the realis "kere"; "rare" is potential.
- Author
- Ise
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
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