Yo no naka yo michi koso nakere omoiiru yama no oku ni mo shika zo naku naru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

世の中よ道こそなけれ思ひいる
山の奥にも鹿ぞ鳴くなる

Roma-ji: Yo no naka yo michi koso nakere omoiiru yama no oku ni mo shika zo naku naru
English Translation: O this world of ours,
there is no road of escape;
deep in the mountains
I enter, lost in brooding,
even here a deer is crying
Meaning: Ah, this world of ours: there is no road of escape. Even deep in the mountains I have entered, lost in thought, I hear a deer crying.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1151

Headnote: "Composed as a poem on deer when I composed a hundred-poem sequence expressing my grievances"
This poem was composed as a poem on deer in a hundred-poem sequence of grievances. O this world, there is no road of escape; even deep in the mountains I enter, lost in brooding, a deer is crying, he says. Brooding on escape from the sorrowful world, he has gone deep into the mountains, yet there too a deer longing for its mate cries sorrowfully. Even in the depths of the mountains there is sorrow, and there is no road anywhere in this world to escape its pains; he entrusts this realization to the deer's voice. The poem is also included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. A son of Fujiwara no Toshitada, he served as master of the empress dowager's household, took the tonsure in Angen 2 (1176) and was called Shakua. He compiled the Senzai Wakashū and was the father of Fujiwara no Teika.
It shares with 1073 of this book, which sings that even deep in Yoshino the blossoms fall, the sense that even in the depths of the mountains there is no refuge from the sorrows of the world, and both close on the hearsay auxiliary "nari." It also shares the voice of the deer with the next poem, 1152.

First line, "yo no naka yo": "yo" is an exclamatory interjection, lamenting as if calling out, "O this world."
Second line, "michi koso nakere": "michi" is a way of escaping the sorrowful world, and "koso," an emphatic binding particle, closes with the realis "nakere." The poem pauses here.
Third line, "omoiiru": "iru" is a pivot word joining "omoi iru," to brood deeply, and "iru," to enter the mountains.
Fourth line, "yama no oku ni mo": "even deep in the mountains." It shares the depths of the mountains with "Yoshino no oku mo" in the fourth line of 1073 of this book.
Fifth line, "shika zo naku naru": "zo," an emphatic binding particle, closes with "naru," the attributive of the hearsay auxiliary "nari," "I hear a deer crying." It shares the deer's voice with "shika no ne wa" in the third line of the next poem, 1152.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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