先の世の浅き契りを知らずして
人をつらしと思ひけるかな
人をつらしと思ひけるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Saki no yo no asaki chigiri o shirazu shite hito o tsurashi to omoikeru kana
- English Translation
-
Not knowing how slight
the bond between us had been
in a former life,
I went on thinking you
so cruel and so unkind
- Meaning
- Not knowing how slight our bond had been in a former life, I went on thinking you heartless.
- Commentary
-
Book Eleven Poems from Variant Manuscripts 420
The poet resented the other's coldness, but it was due to a slight bond in a former life; not knowing this, she reflects, she thought the other heartless. Grounded in the Buddhist view that human ties are governed by karmic bonds from former lives, the poem shows a wish to quiet her resentment.
This poem closes the book. Whereas the opening poem, 416, celebrated the reign to come, the closing poem looks back on "a former life," so that the book's beginning and end face each other across the future and the past.
The first line, "saki no yo no," refers to a former life. It answers the opening poem, 416, whose "sasamu kagiri wa" sang of the future.
The second line, "asaki chigiri o," refers to a shallow bond from a former life.
The third line, "shirazu shite," adds "shite" to the negative "zu": not knowing.
The fourth line, "hito o tsurashi to," refers to thinking the other heartless.
The final line, "omoikeru kana," combines the attributive exclamatory "keri" and "kana": so I thought, I now realize.
- Author
- Akazome Emon
- Source
- Shika Wakashu
- Prev Poem
-
Fumoto o ba Uji no kawagiri tachikomete kumoi ni miyuru Asahiyama kana