まどろみてさてもやみなばいかがせん
寝覚めぞあらぬ命なりける
寝覚めぞあらぬ命なりける
- Roma-ji
-
Madoromite sate mo yaminaba ikaga sen nezame zo aranu inochi narikeru
- English Translation
-
If I doze away
and it should all end like that,
what then would I do?
It is waking in the night
that is this life I thought was gone
- Meaning
- What if I should doze off and simply end like that? It is waking in the night, I find, that shows a life I thought was gone still goes on.
- Commentary
-
Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1140
Headnote: "Topic unknown"
What if I doze and it all ends so; waking in the night, I find, is a life I thought was gone, he says. For one who is old or ill, life may end while one simply falls asleep. If so, each time he wakes in the night he learns that his life still goes on, and waking itself is proof of a life unexpectedly left to him, singing of a heart that lives side by side with death.
The author, "the monk Saijū," had the lay name Minamoto no Suemasa. He was close to Saigyō and traveled with him on journeys of practice.
It shares "nezame" with the preceding poem, 1139. Where the preceding poem says waking too is a dream, this one says waking is the proof of life, so the two stand in contrast.
First line, "madoromite": "dozing off." It shares "madoromu" with "madoromu hodo wa" in the second line of 1125 of this book.
Second line, "sate mo yaminaba": "yamu" means to end, here for life to cease. "Na" is the irrealis of the perfective "nu," and with "ba" it forms a supposition, "if it should end just like that."
Third line, "ikaga sen": "what then would I do?" and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "nezame zo aranu": "zo" is an emphatic binding particle closing with "keru" in the fifth line. "Aranu" means "that I would not think to be." It shares "nezame" with "nezame mo yume o" in the fourth line of the preceding poem, 1139.
Fifth line, "inochi narikeru": "keru" is the attributive of the exclamatory "keri," closing the binding.
- Author
- Saijū
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Tsukuzuku to omoeba kanashi akatsuki no nezame mo yume o miru ni zo arikeru
- Next Poem
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Sakidatsu o miru wa nao koso kanashikere okurehatsubeki kono yo naranedo