Mizutori o mizu no ue to ya yoso ni mimu ware mo ukitaru yo o sugushitsutsu - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

水鳥を水の上とやよそに見む
我もうきたる世を過ぐしつつ

Roma-ji: Mizutori o mizu no ue to ya yoso ni mimu ware mo ukitaru yo o sugushitsutsu
English Translation: The waterfowl there,
can I look on them as things
upon the water?
For I too pass my days
in a world adrift and sad
Meaning: Can I look upon the waterfowl as mere creatures of the water, apart from me? I too am living out my days in a floating, sorrowful world.
Commentary: Book Six Winter Poems 430

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Can she look on the waterfowl, the poet asks, as mere creatures of the water with no bearing on her, when she too is living out her days in a floating, sorrowful world? In the waterfowl afloat on the water she sees her own unsettled self, expressing the melancholy of a life in court service.
The author, "Murasaki Shikibu," was the daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki, Governor of Echizen. She served Empress Shōshi, consort of Emperor Ichijō, and wrote The Tale of Genji and The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu. She is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals of the middle period, and a poem of hers is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
The poem appears in The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, composed when, faced with a splendid court occasion, she watches waterfowl at play on the pond and thinks of her own sorrows.

First line, "mizutori o": birds floating and playing on ponds and other waters. Following the mandarin ducks of the preceding poem, 429, it sings of waterfowl.
Second line, "mizu no ue to ya": "mizu no ue" is what happens on the water, a world with no bearing on her. The rhetorical "ya" closes with the attributive "mu" in the third line.
Third line, "yoso ni mimu": "yoso ni miru" is to look on something as unrelated to oneself, "could I look on them so? I could not." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "ware mo ukitaru": "uki" is a pivot word joining "uki," floating on the water, and "uki," sorrowful.
Fifth line, "yo o sugushitsutsu": "tsutsu" marks continuance, "while I live out my days in this sorrowful world."
Author: Murasaki Shikibu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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