夏深き森の空蟬おのれのみ
むなしき恋に身を砕くらむ
むなしき恋に身を砕くらむ
- Roma-ji
-
Natsu fukaki mori no utsusemi onore nomi munashiki koi ni mi o kudakuramu
- English Translation
-
Deep into summer,
like the cicada's empty shell
in the forest, am I
the only one to break myself
for a love that comes to nothing?
- Meaning
- Like an empty cicada shell in the forest deep in summer, am I alone breaking myself to pieces over a love that comes to nothing?
- Commentary
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Love Poems 412
Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Among poems on love"
In the empty cicada shell left in the forest deep in summer, the poet sees hollowness, and wonders whether he alone is breaking himself over a love that bears no fruit. The emptiness of the shell and the vanity of love are laid together.
Line 1 means "deep in summer," moving from the thick mountain scenes of the preceding poems into the summer forest.
Line 2 names the empty cicada shell in the forest, its hollowness leading to "empty."
Line 3 means "I alone," nomi being a limiting particle.
Line 4 means "in an empty love," a love unrewarded, overlapping with the empty shell.
Line 5 means "am I breaking myself to pieces," ramu expressing conjecture about the present.
- Author
- Minamoto no Sanetomo
- Source
- Kinkaishu
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