Sadame naki mi wa ukigumo ni yosoetsutsu hate wa sore ni zo narihatenubeki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

定めなき身は浮雲によそへつつ
果てはそれにぞなりはてぬべき

Roma-ji: Sadame naki mi wa ukigumo ni yosoetsutsu hate wa sore ni zo narihatenubeki
English Translation: This uncertain self
I have likened again and again
to a drifting cloud;
in the end, into that cloud
I am sure to turn at last
Meaning: I have always likened this uncertain body of mine to a drifting cloud, and in the end, surely, I will become that very cloud.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Buddhist Poems 1203

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Like a drifting cloud"
Following the preceding poem, this one takes up another of the Vimalakīrti Sutra's ten similes, that this body is like a drifting cloud. I have likened my uncertain body to a drifting cloud, but in the end I shall surely become that cloud, he says. Thinking of the smoke of cremation rising to become cloud and vanish in the sky, he presses the frailty of the body to its conclusion: the drifting cloud he has used as a figure is what he himself will finally become.
The author, "Former Major Counselor Kintō," is Fujiwara no Kintō. A son of the Regent and Chancellor Fujiwara no Yoritada, he rose to provisional major counselor. He compiled the Wakan Rōeishū, excelled in poetic theory, and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets of the middle ages.
Together with the preceding poem, 1202, it treats the ten similes; the preceding poem sings of froth on water and this one of a drifting cloud, pairing water and sky.

First line, "sadame naki": "uncertain," impermanent, modifying "mi," the body, in the second line. It is the same phrase as "sadame naki" in the third line of 1224 in this book, and both use the ten similes to sing of the impermanence of the body.
Second line, "mi wa ukigumo ni": "ukigumo" is a cloud floating and drifting in the sky, taking up the "drifting cloud" of the headnote.
Third line, "yosoetsutsu": "yosou" means to liken, and "tsutsu" expresses repeated, continuing action.
Fourth line, "hate wa sore ni zo": "hate" is the end, the close of life, and "sore" points to the drifting cloud. "Zo," an emphatic binding particle, closes with the attributive "beki" in the fifth line.
Fifth line, "narihatenubeki": "narihatsu" means to become wholly, repeating the "hate" of the fourth line. "Nubeki" means "surely will," and closes the binding.
Author: Fujiwara no Kintō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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