Mono omou kokoro ya mi ni mo sakidachite ukiyo o iden shirube narubeki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

物思ふ心や身にも先立ちて
憂き世を出でんしるべなるべき

Roma-ji: Mono omou kokoro ya mi ni mo sakidachite ukiyo o iden shirube narubeki
English Translation: This brooding heart,
going on ahead even
of my own body,
will it be the guide that leads
me out of this world of sorrow?
Meaning: Could it be that this brooding heart, going on ahead of my body, will be the guide that leads me out of this sorrowful world?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1078

Headnote: "Composed at a time when I had cause for grief"
This poem was composed at a time when he had cause for grief. Will this brooding heart, going ahead of my body, be the guide that leads me out of the sorrowful world, he says. His body still remains in the world, but his heart, sunk in brooding, already wishes to leave it. He wonders whether that heart, going on ahead, will become the guide that leads his body too toward the tonsure, finding in his grief a longing to leave the world.
The author, "Former Left Gate Guards Commander Kinmitsu," is Fujiwara no Kinmitsu. A son of Fujiwara no Suenari, he rose to provisional middle counselor and commander of the left gate guards, but was later dismissed from office.
It has the same headnote as 1060 of this book, "at a time when I had cause for grief," and shares with it the brooding in the midst of sorrow.

First line, "mono omou": "brooding."
Second line, "kokoro ya mi ni mo": "ya" is an interrogative binding particle closing with "beki" in the fifth line. Heart and body are set against each other. 1096 of this book also sings of the relation of heart and body.
Third line, "sakidachite": "going on ahead of the body."
Fourth line, "ukiyo o iden": "to leave the sorrowful world," meaning to take the tonsure.
Fifth line, "shirube narubeki": "shirube" is a guide, and "beki," the attributive of the conjectural "beshi," closes the binding.
Author: Fujiwara no Kinmitsu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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