身を知らで人を恨むる心こそ
散る花よりもはかなかりけれ
散る花よりもはかなかりけれ
- Roma-ji
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Mi o shirade hito o uramuru kokoro koso chiru hana yori mo hakanakarikere
- English Translation
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Not knowing my place,
to bear resentment toward you —
such a heart as this
is more fleeting, I now see,
than the blossoms as they fall
- Meaning
- A heart that resents another without knowing its own place is more fleeting, I see now, than falling blossoms.
- Commentary
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Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems I 279
The poet compares the futility of a heart that resents others without knowing its own station to the fleetingness of falling blossoms. By calling it more fleeting even than falling flowers, the very emblem of transience, the poem strongly expresses his self-reflection.
Set amid a run of blossom poems, it turns the transience of flowers into the transience of the human heart.
The first line, "mi o shirade," uses the negative "de": without knowing my place.
The second line, "hito o uramuru," refers to resenting another.
The third line, "kokoro koso" (such a heart), singles out the resentful heart with the emphatic "koso."
The fourth line, "chiru hana yori mo" (than falling blossoms), sets the emblem of transience as the measure.
The final line, "hakanakarikere," closes "koso" with the perfective form of the exclamatory "keri," a kakari-musubi ending with the realization that it is still more fleeting.
- Author
- Fujiwara no Yorimune
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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