あはれとも言ふべき人は思ほえで
身のいたづらになりぬべきかな
身のいたづらになりぬべきかな
- Roma-ji
-
Aware to mo iubeki hito wa omoboede mi no itazura ni narinubeki kana
- English Translation
-
Not one comes to mind
who would say of me, "Poor thing,"
not a single soul;
so it seems this self of mine
must surely perish in vain.
- Meaning
- I can think of no one who would say of me, "How pitiful," and so I must surely waste away and die for nothing.
- Commentary
-
Book Fifteen Love Poems V 950
Headnote: "When a woman he had been courting later grew cold and would no longer meet him at all"
The poem says that, with no one coming to mind who would say "how pitiful" of me, I must surely die in vain. It pleads the loneliness and despair of one abandoned by a lover in the form of contemplating one's own death, seeking to stir the other's pity.
According to the headnote, it was written when a woman he had been courting later grew cold and would no longer meet him at all. It was also chosen as the forty-fifth poem of the Hyakunin Isshu and is famed as the author's representative poem.
The author, "Ichijō Sesshō", is Fujiwara no Koretada, eldest son of Fujiwara no Morosuke, who rose to regent and chancellor. Gifted in poetry, he served as director of the Poetry Bureau when the Gosenshū was compiled. After his death he was given the posthumous name Kentoku-kō.
First line, "aware to mo," means "even as pitiful." It shares the word "aware" with the fourth line of 926 in this book, "aware to kimi o."
Second line, "iubeki hito wa," means "one who would say so," with "beki" the attributive of the conjectural "beshi." It shares with the fourth line of the next poem, 951, "iu hito no naki," the grief that there is no one to speak a word for oneself.
Third line, "omoboede," means "without anyone coming to mind," with "de" a negative conjunctive particle.
Fourth line, "mi no itazura ni," means "my self in vain," a veiled way of speaking of death.
Final line, "narinubeki kana," means "surely I shall become," with "nubeki" a strong conjecture and "kana" exclamatory.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Koretada
- Source
- Shui Wakashu
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Asamashi ya mishi ka to dani mo omowanu ni kawaranu kao zo kokoro naramashi
- Next Poem
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Sa mo koso wa aimimu koto no katakarame wasurezu to dani iu hito no naki