かくてしもえぞ住むまじき山里の
細谷川の心細さに
細谷川の心細さに
- Roma-ji
-
Kakute shimo e zo sumumajiki yamazato no hosotanigawa no kokorobososa ni
- English Translation
-
Living on like this
I could not remain for long
in this mountain home,
for like the slender valley stream
my heart is thin with longing
- Meaning
- I could never go on living here like this, for my heart is as thin and forlorn as the slender stream in this mountain valley.
- Commentary
-
Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems I 532
Living like this, the poet says, he can surely not go on dwelling here, for he feels as forlorn as the slender stream flowing through the mountain village. The heart unable to endure the loneliness of a humble mountain dwelling is overlaid on the thinness of the narrow valley stream.
Poem 517 in this book laments that even a mountain village is not apart from the world of sorrows, and this poem laments the loneliness of the mountain village. In neither poem does the mountain village, supposed to be a refuge from the world, offer peace.
First line, 'kakute shimo', means in this state, the particle shimo adding emphasis.
Second line, 'e zo sumumajiki', means I could hardly live here, the adverb e and the negative conjectural maji working together to express impossibility. The particle zo is answered by the attributive majiki, and the poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, 'yamazato no', means of the mountain village, the same word as yamazato mo in the first line of poem 517 in this book.
Fourth line, 'hosotanigawa no', means of the slender valley stream; up to here forms a preface leading to kokorobososa in the final line, the hoso of the narrow stream echoed in the hoso of forlornness.
Final line, 'kokorobososa ni', means because I am so forlorn, giving by inversion the reason for the second line.
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
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Masurao wa yamada no io ni oinikeri ima ikuchiyo ni awamu to suramu
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Kusa no io nani tsuyukeshi to omoikemu moranu iwaya mo sode wa nurekeri