Ikani semu waga mi kudareru inafune no shibashi bakari no inochi taezu wa - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

如何せむ我が身くだれるいな舟の
しばしばかりの命絶えずは

Roma-ji: Ikani semu waga mi kudareru inafune no shibashi bakari no inochi taezu wa
English Translation: What am I to do,
I, who like a rice boat
have drifted downstream,
if my life, just for a while,
may yet hold and not give out?
Meaning: What am I to do, I who have sunk in rank like a rice boat drifting downstream, if only my life might last a little while longer?
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems II 575

Headnote: "When His Majesty replied to this with only 'just the rice boat,' he sent a further reply"
The poet asks what he, sunk in rank like a rice boat drifting downstream, is to do, if only his life might hold out for a little while. The headnote shows that when Retired Emperor En'yū answered the long poem placed before it, 574, with only the words "just the rice boat," Kaneie replied once more with this poem. The emperor's answer draws on the eastern song in the Kokinshū, "Mogamigawa noboreba kudaru inafune no," and is taken to mean "it is not no, only wait a while"; Kaneie takes up that rice boat and frets over the future of his fallen self.
Where the opening poem of this book, 509, answered a question from someone of high rank, this closing poem answers the words of Retired Emperor En'yū, and together with 512, which answers the emperor's question, the book begins and ends with poems of reply to the noble.
The author, the Higashi Sanjō Chancellor, is Fujiwara no Kaneie. The third son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, he was stripped of the post of Major Captain of the Right Inner Palace Guards in his rivalry with his elder brother Kanemichi, but later rose to Regent and Chancellor. He was the father of Fujiwara no Michinaga.

First line, "ikani semu," means "what am I to do," and the poem breaks after this first line. Like the final line of 531 in this book, "ikaga kotaemu," it responds to a noble's words with a heart at a loss.
Second line, "waga mi kudareru," means "I, who have gone down," with "ru" the attributive form of the auxiliary "ri" of continuing state. It lays his fall in rank over a rice boat going downstream.
Third line, "inafune no," means "of a rice boat," taking up the emperor's words, "just the rice boat." "Ina" is a pivot word on "rice" and "no."
Fourth line, "shibashi bakari no," means "for just a little while," taking up the eastern song's sense of "wait a while," on which the emperor's words draw.
Final line, "inochi taezu wa," means "if my life does not give out," with "zu wa" expressing a negative supposition. The whole lower verse trails off in the form of a wish for life enough to wait.
Author: Fujiwara no Kaneie
Source: Shui Wakashu
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