うらやまし憂き世を出でていかばかり
隈なき峰の月を見るらむ
隈なき峰の月を見るらむ
- Roma-ji
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Urayamashi ukiyo o idete ikabakari kuma naki mine no tsuki o miruramu
- English Translation
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How I envy you,
who have left this sorry world:
oh, how clear must be
the moon that shines over peaks
without a single shadow
- Meaning
- How I envy you! Having left this sorrowful world, how clearly you must be seeing the moon above the cloudless peaks.
- Commentary
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Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems I 538
How enviable, the poet says, for you who have left this sorrowful world must be gazing on the moon above the peaks with not a shadow on it. The poem seems to have been sent to someone who took vows and entered the mountains. The moon over the shadowless peaks stands for the mind of enlightenment free of the clouds of passion, or for the Buddha's teaching, and the poet envies the clarity of one who has renounced the world.
The next poem, 539, answers this one, and the two form an exchange. Where poem 536, two poems before, sang of a faint moon leaking through the trees, this poem sings of the moon shining without shadow over the peaks, the dim and bright moons standing in contrast.
First line, 'urayamashi', means how I envy you, the poem breaking after the first line on the final form of the adjective.
Second line, 'ukiyo o idete', means leaving the sorrowful world, that is, taking the tonsure.
Third line, 'ikabakari', means how much, answered by ramu in the final line.
Fourth line, 'kuma naki mine no', means of the peaks without shadow, kuma nashi meaning without shade or cloud. The same phrase kuma naki mine appears in the fourth line of the next poem, 539.
Final line, 'tsuki o miruramu', means you must be seeing the moon, the conjectural ramu imagining the state of someone far away in the mountains.
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
- Prev Poem
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Kasugayama mine tsuzuki teru tsukikage ni shirarenu tani no matsu mo arikeri
- Next Poem
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Morotomo ni nishi e ya yuku to tsukikage no kuma naki mine o tazunete zo koshi