Nani sen ni mi o sae sutten to omouran ame ga shita ni wa kimi nomi ya furu - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

何せんにみをさへ捨てんと思らん
天か下には君のみやふる

Roma-ji: Nani sen ni mi o sae sutten to omouran ame ga shita ni wa kimi nomi ya furu
English Translation: Why should you think,
for what purpose, of casting off
even life itself?
Under heaven, is it on you alone
that the long rain falls?
Meaning: Why would you think of throwing away even your life? Beneath the heavens, are you the only one on whom the rain falls, the only one living through this world?
Commentary: 9 Gazing into the Early-Summer Rain

Around the time the prince's visits grew rare, the rain fell day after day and the hours dragged. Izumi Shikibu gazed into a sky without a break in the clouds and brooded endlessly on what would become of the two of them. Many men seemed eager to court her, but she cared nothing for them now; people would surely gossip, she thought, but one must first be alive for that to matter, and so she let the days pass.
The woman is Izumi Shikibu, daughter of Ōe no Masamune and, as the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, mother of Koshikibu no Naishi. The Prince of the Dazaifu is Prince Atsumichi, fourth son of Emperor Reizei, so called because he served as Governor-General of the Dazaifu.
When Izumi Shikibu's "Shinoburan mono to mo shirade ono ga tada mi o shiru ame to omoikeru kana" arrived together with "Fureba yo no itodo uki mi no shiraruru o kyō no nagame ni mizu masaranan" on the back of the paper, the prince read them and at once sent this reply.
After the poem he added, "Everyone lives in a sorrowful world." When the sixth day of the fifth month came and the rain still had not stopped, the prince would recall with feeling her reply, which had seemed more troubled than usual.

The first three lines ask "why would you think of casting away even your life?" responding to the grief in her wish that the waters might rise and carry her away, with a particle of addition and an auxiliary of present conjecture.
The lower verses ask "beneath the heavens, is it only on you that the rain falls?" where "furu" means both "to rain" and "to live through," with a rhetorical particle. Taking up the very wordplay of her "as the rain falls," he consoles her that she is not alone in living through a sorrowful world, that he too shares it, and gently restrains her despair.
Author: Prince Atsumichi
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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