恋しさを憂き身なりとて包みしは
いつまでありし心なるらん
いつまでありし心なるらん
- Roma-ji
-
Koishisa o ukimi nari tote tsutsumishi wa itsu made arishi kokoro naruran
- English Translation
-
That heart which once kept
all my longing wrapped away,
for I thought myself
a wretched one: how long ago
did that heart remain in me?
- Meaning
- There was a time when I kept my longing hidden, thinking myself too wretched to love. How long ago did that heart of mine last? Now I can hide nothing.
- Commentary
-
Book Eleven Love Poems I 681
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The heart that once hid my longing, thinking myself a wretched creature, he asks: how long did it last? Looking back on his former restraint, he shows how a love he once concealed out of a sense of his own unworthiness has grown until he can hide it no more.
The author, "Minamoto no Moromitsu," was the son of Major Counselor Minamoto no Moroyori. A poet of the Murakami Genji, he later took the tonsure under the name Shōren. He was the father of Kunaikyō, a woman poet who served Retired Emperor Go-Toba.
It shares with "tsutsumedomo" in 648 and 649 of this book the theme of "wrapping away," hiding, one's love.
First line, "koishisa o": "my longing."
Second line, "ukimi nari tote": "ukimi" is a wretched, unworthy self, "because I am such a one."
Third line, "tsutsumishi wa": "tsutsumi" means to hide out of concern for others' eyes, and "shi" is the attributive of the past "ki," "that I kept it hidden." It is the same verb as "tsutsumedomo" in the first lines of 648 and 649.
Fourth line, "itsu made arishi": "until when did it last," showing that the heart has now been lost.
Fifth line, "kokoro naruran": "ran" is the present conjectural "ramu," "what heart was that?"
- Author
- Minamoto no Moromitsu
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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