驚かぬわが心こそ憂かりけれ
はかなき世をば夢と見ながら
はかなき世をば夢と見ながら
- Roma-ji
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Odorokanu waga kokoro koso ukarikere hakanaki yo o ba yume to minagara
- English Translation
-
This heart of mine
that will not wake from its sleep,
how wretched it is,
though it sees this fleeting world
for what it is, a dream
- Meaning
- How wretched is this heart of mine that will not wake, though it sees this fleeting world for the dream it is.
- Commentary
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Book Nineteen Buddhist Poems 1235
Headnote: "Composed on the Vimalakīrti Sutra's ten similes: this body is like a dream"
Like the preceding poem, this one was composed on the simile that this body is like a dream. How wretched is my heart that does not wake, though it sees this fleeting world as a dream, he says. He laments plainly that though he knows the world is as fleeting as a dream, his heart will not wake from that dream and strive on the Buddhist path.
The author, "Tōren Hōshi," was a monk of the late Heian period and one of the poets who gathered at Shun'e's Karin'en.
It shares its theme with the preceding poem, 1234; where that poem treats the line between dream and reality as a matter of reason, this one laments a heart that will not wake though it knows the dream, the two forming a pair of reason and feeling.
First line, "odorokanu": "odoroku" means to wake, to come to one's senses, so this is not waking from the dream of delusion.
Second line, "waga kokoro koso": "koso," an emphatic binding particle, closes with the perfective form "kere" in the third line.
Third line, "ukarikere": "how wretched, how pitiful," and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "hakanaki yo o ba": "this fleeting world."
Fifth line, "yume to minagara": "nagara" is adversative, "though I see it as a dream." By inversion it gives the reason for the lament of the third line, taking up the "dream" of the preceding poem, 1234.
- Author
- Tōren
- Source
- Senzai Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Miru hodo wa yume mo yume to mo shirareneba utsutsu mo ima wa utsutsu to omowaji
- Next Poem
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Akatsuki o Takano no yama ni matsu hodo ya koke no shita ni mo ariake no tsuki