Asu shiranu Mimuro no kishi no nenashigusa nani adashi yo ni oihajimeken - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

明日知らぬ三室の岸の根なし草
何あだし世に生ひ始めけん

Roma-ji: Asu shiranu Mimuro no kishi no nenashigusa nani adashi yo ni oihajimeken
English Translation: Not knowing tomorrow,
rootless grass upon the banks
by Mimuro's hill,
why did I ever begin
to grow in this fleeting world?
Meaning: Rootless grass upon the banks of Mimuro, not knowing if there will be a tomorrow, why did I ever begin to grow in this fleeting world?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1131

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the theme of impermanence when I presented a hundred-poem sequence"
This poem was composed on the theme of impermanence when she presented a hundred-poem sequence to Retired Emperor Sutoku. Rootless grass on Mimuro's banks, not knowing tomorrow, why did I begin to grow in this fleeting world, she says. Grass that puts down no roots and drifts on the water may be swept away tomorrow. Being so frail a thing, why was she born into this impermanent world, she asks, likening herself to rootless grass and lamenting the fleetingness of life.
The author, "Kodaishin of the Hanazono Minister of the Left's household," was a lady in the household of the Hanazono Minister of the Left, Minamoto no Arihito, and a daughter of Sugawara no Ariyoshi.
Continuing from the preceding poems, it is a poem on impermanence from the same hundred-poem sequence, and the poems from that sequence end here. It shares the fleetingness of life with "hakanasa o" in the third line of the preceding poem, 1130.

First line, "asu shiranu": "not knowing if one will live tomorrow."
Second line, "Mimuro no kishi no": Mimuro is a famous place in Yamato Province, the area around Mount Mimuro, held to be a mountain where gods descend.
Third line, "nenashigusa": grass that puts down no roots and drifts on the water, a figure for her frail self. The poem pauses on this noun.
Fourth line, "nani adashi yo ni": "nani" means "why," and "adashi yo" is a fleeting, impermanent world.
Fifth line, "oihajimeken": "ou," to grow, suits the grass and stands for being born. "Ken" is the attributive of the past conjectural "kemu," "why did I begin to grow?"
Author: Hanazono no Sadaijin-ke no Kodaishin
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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