夕暮れはものぞ悲しき鐘の音を
明日も聞くべき身とし知らねば
明日も聞くべき身とし知らねば
- Roma-ji
-
Yūgure wa mono zo kanashiki kane no oto o asu mo kiku beki mi to shi shiraneba
- English Translation
-
At the close of day
how sad all things become —
for I do not know
whether I shall live to hear
the sound of this bell tomorrow
- Meaning
- Evening fills everything with sadness, for I cannot know whether I shall be here to hear the sound of this bell again tomorrow.
- Commentary
-
Book Ten Miscellaneous Poems II 357
Hearing the bell ring at dusk, the poet laments the frailty of life, unsure whether she will be here to hear it again tomorrow. In the bell that marks the end of the day she hears the end of her own life.
Poem 406 of this book also hears in the bell tolling for the dead a sound that will one day be for oneself, so poems that hear the frailty of life in a bell echo each other.
The first line, "yūgure wa," singles out evening with "wa."
The second line, "mono zo kanashiki," forms a kakari-musubi of "zo" and the attributive "kanashiki": how sad it is, with a break after the second line.
The third line, "kane no oto o," refers to the temple bell rung at dusk.
The fourth line, "asu mo kiku beki," uses the attributive potential "beki": able to hear it tomorrow too.
The final line, "mi to shi shiraneba," uses the intensifier "shi" and a conditional of certainty with the negative, giving by inversion the reason: since I do not know that I am such a one.
- Author
- Izumi Shikibu
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
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Kaku shitsutsu ima wa to naramu toki ni koso kuyashiki koto no kai mo nakarame
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