一年ははかなき夢の心地して
暮れぬる今日ぞおどろかれける
暮れぬる今日ぞおどろかれける
- Roma-ji
-
Hitotose wa hakanaki yume no kokochi shite kurenuru kyō zo odorokarekeru
- English Translation
-
The whole year long
has felt like nothing more than
a fleeting dream,
and now on this day as it ends
I wake from it with a start
- Meaning
- The past year has felt like a fleeting dream, and on this day as it ends I am startled awake.
- Commentary
-
Book Six Winter Poems 474
Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'The Year's End'"
Composed on the topic of the year's end. The past year has felt like a fleeting dream, the poet says, and on this day as it ends he is startled as if waking from a dream. Likening to a dream a year that, once past, seems to have gone in a moment, he overlays waking from a dream with the surprise, at the year's end, of realizing how fast it went.
The author, "Former Risshi Shunsō," was a monk of the cloistered-rule period who served as Risshi, a clerical rank, but little is known of his life.
The seven poems from 469 to 475, the last poem of the book, are poems on the end of the year.
First line, "hitotose wa": "this one year." Where 400 of this book sang of winter deepening by the count of nights, "hitoyo futayo," this poem sings of the speed of time on the scale of a year.
Second line, "hakanaki yume no": "hakanashi" means fleeting, empty, the same word as "hakanaku" in the preceding poem, 473.
Third line, "kokochi shite": "with the feeling of."
Fourth line, "kurenuru kyō zo": "nuru," the attributive of the perfective "nu," "today, now ended," the last day of the year. The emphatic "zo" closes with the attributive "keru" in the last line.
Fifth line, "odorokarekeru": "odoroku" is a pivot word meaning both to wake from a dream and to be startled, and it is also associated with the "dream" of the second line. "Re" is the continuative of the spontaneous "ru," and "keru" the attributive of the exclamatory "keri."
- Author
- Shunsō
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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Oshimedomo hakanaku kurete yuku toshi no shinobu mukashi ni kaeramashikaba
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Miyako nite okuri mukau to isogishi o shirade ya toshi no kyō wa kurenan