Te ni musubu mizu ni yadoreru tsukikage no aru ka naki ka no yo ni koso arikere - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

手に結ぶ水に宿れる月影の
あるかなきかの世にこそありけれ

Roma-ji: Te ni musubu mizu ni yadoreru tsukikage no aru ka naki ka no yo ni koso arikere
English Translation: In the water scooped
up in my hands, the moonlight
there has found a home;
it is there, or is it not?
Such, I find, is this world of ours.
Meaning: Like moonlight dwelling in water cupped in my hands, there one moment and gone the next, such, I find, is this world.
Commentary: Book Twenty Lament Poems 1322

Headnote: "Sent to Lord Kintada, composed when he felt forlorn in the world and sensed its impermanence; meanwhile his illness grew grave. His personal collection records that he died soon after composing this poem"
The poet says that this world is like moonlight dwelling in water scooped up in the hands, hardly there at all. The headnote shows that feeling forlorn and sensing the world's impermanence, he composed and sent it to Minamoto no Kintada, but meanwhile his illness grew grave, and his personal collection records that he died soon after composing it. Laying the transience of his own life and the world over moonlight in the water of a cupped hand, something before one's eyes yet impossible to grasp, it is famous as Tsurayuki's death poem. Minamoto no Kintada was a grandson of Emperor Kōkō and one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
The author, Ki no Tsurayuki, was the leading compiler of the Kokinshū, wrote its kana preface and the Tosa Diary. He is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "te ni musubu," means "scooped up in the hands," "musubu" meaning to cup the palms together to take up water.
Second line, "mizu ni yadoreru," means "dwelling in the water," with "ru" the attributive form of the auxiliary "ri" of continuing state.
Third line, "tsukikage no," means "of the moonlight." Up to here the lines lead into "aru ka naki ka" in the fourth line.
Fourth line, "aru ka naki ka no," means "there or not there," layering the faintness of moonlight in water over the fleetingness of life.
Final line, "yo ni koso arikere," means "such is the world," with the binding particle "koso" resolved by "kere," the perfective form of the exclamatory "keri." It shares the realization of the world's fleetingness with 1318 in this book, which says the world should have been called a dream.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Shui Wakashu
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