わが恋は夢路にのみぞ慰むる
つれなき人も逢ふと見ゆれば
つれなき人も逢ふと見ゆれば
- Roma-ji
-
Waga koi wa yumeji ni nomi zo nagusamuru tsurenaki hito mo au to miyureba
- English Translation
-
This love of mine finds
its only consolation
along the dream road,
for even you, so heartless,
appear to meet with me there
- Meaning
- My love finds comfort only in dreams, for there even you, so cold to me, seem to come and meet me.
- Commentary
-
Book Seven Love Poems I 193
Because even the cold beloved seems to meet him in dreams, the poet says his love finds comfort there alone. The poem conveys the sorrow of an unrequited love that can cling only to meetings in dreams.
The first line, "waga koi wa" (my love), sets the speaker's love as the topic with "wa." This poem and the next, 194, share "nagusamuru" (consoled), "yume" (dream), and "tsurenaki" (heartless), forming a pair: one finds solace in dreams, the other imagines what would happen if even the dream were cold.
The second line, "yumeji ni nomi zo," uses the emphatic particle "zo" to stress that this happens only in dreams.
The third line, "nagusamuru," closes "zo" in the attributive form, ending a kakari-musubi and creating a break after the third line.
The fourth line, "tsurenaki hito mo" (even the heartless one), uses "mo" to express surprise that even she would come.
The final line, "au to miyureba," is a conditional of certainty giving, by inversion, the reason for the third line.
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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Nagusamuru kata mo nakute ya yaminamashi yume ni mo hito no tsurenakariseba