あぢきなく過ぐる月日ぞ恨めしき
逢ひ見しほどを隔つと思へば
逢ひ見しほどを隔つと思へば
- Roma-ji
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Ajikinaku suguru tsukihi zo urameshiki aimishi hodo o hedatsu to omoeba
- English Translation
-
Futile and fruitless,
the passing months and days—
how bitter they are,
when I think how they divide me
from the time we were together
- Meaning
- How bitter the months and days that slip uselessly by, when I think how each one takes me farther from the time we were together.
- Commentary
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Book Eight Love Poems II 487
How bitter the months and days that pass in vain, the poet says, when she thinks how each day pushes the time they met further away. The poem expresses, as resentment of time, the way the day of their meeting recedes ever deeper into the past.
First line, 'ajikinaku', means helplessly, in vain.
Second line, 'suguru tsukihi zo', means the passing months and days, the particle zo answered by urameshiki in the third line.
Third line, 'urameshiki', means how bitter, closing in the attributive in answer to zo in the second line, the poem breaking after the third line.
Fourth line, 'aimishi hodo o', means the time we met, using shi, the attributive of the past ki.
Final line, 'hedatsu to omoeba', means when I think how they divide us, giving by inversion the reason for the bitterness.
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
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