世の中を常なき物と思はずは
いかでか花の散るに堪へまし
いかでか花の散るに堪へまし
- Roma-ji
-
Yo no naka o tsune naki mono to omowazu wa ikade ka hana no chiru ni taemashi
- English Translation
-
If I did not think
of this world of ours as
a thing without constancy,
how could I ever bear
the falling of the blossoms?
- Meaning
- Had I not come to see this world as a thing that never stays the same, how could I ever bear to watch the blossoms fall?
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1069
Headnote: "Topic unknown"
If I did not think of the world as impermanent, how could I bear the falling of the blossoms, he says. It is precisely because he understands the principle that all things in this world change that he can bear the sorrow of falling flowers, and so he seeks to accept that sorrow through the teachings of the Buddhist path.
The author, "the monk Jakuzen," was a son of Fujiwara no Tametada, and his lay name was Yorinari. With his elder brothers Jakuchō and Jakunen he lived at Ōhara, and the three were called the Three Jaku of Ōhara. He was a close friend of Saigyō.
It shares with 1053 of this book, which declines to resent the fleetingness of the blossoms because no one in this world lives as the heart wishes, the way of accepting the sorrow of falling flowers by reflecting on the nature of the world.
First line, "yo no naka o": "this world."
Second line, "tsune naki mono to": "as a thing without constancy," impermanent.
Third line, "omowazu wa": "zu wa" is a negative supposition, "if I did not think so."
Fourth line, "ikade ka hana no": "ikade ka" is rhetorical, and together with the fifth line means "how could I bear it? I could not."
Fifth line, "chiru ni taemashi": "mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary answering the supposition in the third line.
- Author
- Jakuzen
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
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