行く水の泡ならばこそ消えかへり
人の淵瀬を流れても見め
人の淵瀬を流れても見め
- Roma-ji
-
Yuku mizu no awa naraba koso kiekaeri hito no fuchise o nagarete mo mime
- English Translation
-
If only I were
a bubble on flowing water,
vanishing, rising,
through the deeps and shallows of you
I could drift along and see.
- Meaning
- If only I were a bubble on the flowing stream—vanishing and rising again, I could drift through the deeps and shallows of your heart and see them for myself.
- Commentary
-
Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 882
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem laments: if I were a bubble on flowing water, then, vanishing and rising again, I could drift through the deeps and shallows of your heart and see them for myself—but I cannot. It likens to a water bubble the frustration of wanting to know the changes of another's heart with no way to learn them.
First line, "yuku mizu no," means "of flowing water." Taking up the preceding poems on water, this one sings of water in motion.
Second line, "awa naraba koso," means "only if I were a bubble," with "naraba" a supposition. The binding particle "koso" is answered by "mime" in the final line.
Third line, "kiekaeri," means "vanishing and rising again," and also "pining almost to vanishing." It lays the brevity of a bubble over the feeling of fading away for love.
Fourth line, "hito no fuchise o," means "through your deeps and shallows," likening deep pools and shallow rapids to the depth, shallowness, and changes of another's heart.
Final line, "nagarete mo mime," means "I could drift along and see," concluding in "me," the realis of the conjectural "mu," in answer to "koso" in the second line. Unspoken is the grief that, being no bubble, one cannot do even this.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Shui Wakashu
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