Miru mo uki wa unawa ni niguru irokuzu o nogarakasade mo shitamu mochiami

見るも憂きは鵜縄に逃ぐるいろくづを
逃らかさでもしたむ持ち網

Roma-ji: Miru mo uki wa unawa ni niguru irokuzu o nogarakasade mo shitamu mochiami
English Translation: What's painful to see:
the fish that flee from the ropes
of cormorant fishing,
not one let slip away,
scooped up in the hand nets.
Meaning: What is painful to watch is the hand net that scoops up, letting none escape, the fish fleeing from the cormorant ropes.
Commentary: Miscellaneous Poems 1395

Headnote: none
What is painful to see is the hand net that scoops up, without letting any escape, the fish fleeing the driving ropes, the poet says.
Unawa is a rope used, as in cormorant fishing, to drive fish; he feels the sorrow of killing in fishing so thorough that it nets even the fish that escape. As in 1372 and others in this book, one glimpses a devotee's eye seeing sin in fishing. Though it contains hard-to-construe words, it is read as above.

First line, “miru mo uki wa”: what is painful even to see; the line has an extra syllable.
Second line, “unawa ni niguru”: fleeing from the driving ropes.
Third line, “irokuzu o”: the fish.
Fourth line, “nogarakasade mo”: taken as "without letting them escape."
Fifth line, “shitamu mochiami”: shitamu is taken as scooping up completely; mochiami is a hand net; ending on a noun.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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