物思へばちぢに心ぞ砕けぬる
信太の森の千枝ならねども
信太の森の千枝ならねども
- Roma-ji
-
Mono omoeba chiji ni kokoro zo kudakenuru Shinoda no mori no chie naranedomo
- English Translation
-
When I brood on love,
into a thousand pieces
my heart breaks apart,
though it is not Shinoda Wood
with its thousand branches.
- Meaning
- When I brood over love my heart breaks into a thousand pieces, though it is not the thousand-branched tree of Shinoda Forest.
- Commentary
-
Love Poems 676
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Love"
When the poet broods over love, his heart shatters into a thousand pieces, though it is not the camphor tree of Shinoda Forest, said to divide into a thousand branches. Shinoda Forest in Izumi is a poetic place known for a camphor tree with a thousand branches. Chiji, in a thousand pieces, echoes chie, a thousand branches, likening the shattered heart to the branching tree.
651 in this book also compares the thousand branches of Shinoda Forest with the thickness of lament, so the same poetic place is used to sing both of the multitude of laments and of the shattering of the heart.
First line, “mono omoeba”: when I brood over love.
Second line, “chiji ni kokoro zo”: chiji ni is in a thousand ways, echoing chie in the last line; the binding particle zo answers the attributive nuru in the third line.
Third line, “kudakenuru”: it shatters, closing in the attributive form answering zo; the poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “Shinoda no mori no”: Shinoda Forest is a poetic place in Izumi known for a camphor tree with a thousand branches.
Fifth line, “chie naranedomo”: though it is not those thousand branches, returning in inversion to the upper verse.
- Author
- Saigyō
- Source
- Sankashu
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