Omoide no araba kokoro mo tomarinan itoiyasuki wa ukiyo narikeri - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひ出のあらば心もとまりなん
厭ひやすきは憂き世なりけり

Roma-ji: Omoide no araba kokoro mo tomarinan itoiyasuki wa ukiyo narikeri
English Translation: If there were memories
worth the keeping, then my heart
might linger here;
how easy to turn away from
is this sorrowful world
Meaning: Had I memories worth keeping, my heart too might linger here; how easy, I find, it is to turn away from this sorrowful world.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1108

Headnote: "Composed on the theme of expressing my grievances"
This poem was composed on the theme of grievance. If there were memories worth keeping, my heart would linger, but how easy to turn from is the sorrowful world, he says. Were there happy memories enough to bind one's heart to this world, it might be hard to leave, but since the world is full of sorrow, one can all the more easily spurn it, and he expresses his weariness of the world in a paradox.
The author, "the Prince of Ninnaji (Shukaku)," is Prince-Priest Shukaku. The second son of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, he entered Ninnaji and became its head. He loved waka and associated with many poets.
It shares "kokoro tomaru," the heart lingering, with "kokoro tomarishi" in the fourth line of 1135 of this book. Where this poem says the heart will not linger without memories, 1135 sings of a heart that lingered at a grass hut.

First line, "omoide no": "memories worth keeping."
Second line, "araba kokoro mo": "if there were, my heart too," the irrealis with "ba" making a supposition.
Third line, "tomarinan": "na" is the irrealis of the intensive "nu" and "n" the conjectural "mu," "it would surely linger." The poem pauses here. It shares "kokoro tomaru" with "kokoro tomarishi" in the fourth line of 1135 of this book.
Fourth line, "itoiyasuki wa": "what is easy to spurn."
Fifth line, "ukiyo narikeri": "keri" is exclamatory, expressing the realization that it is the sorrowful world.
Author: Cloistered Prince Shukaku
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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