あはれまむと思ふ心は広けれど
はぐくむ袖の狭くもあるかな
はぐくむ袖の狭くもあるかな
- Roma-ji
-
Awaremamu to omou kokoro wa hirokeredo hagukumu sode no sebaku mo aru kana
- English Translation
-
The heart that wishes
to cherish you with tender love
is wide indeed, yet
the sleeves that would hold you close
how narrow, how small they are
- Meaning
- The heart that longs to cherish you is wide, yet how narrow are the sleeves with which I would wrap and shelter you.
- Commentary
-
Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems I 594
The poet's heart, which wishes to cherish the other, is wide, but the sleeves that should wrap and nurture are narrow. Though the wish to love and protect is great, the poet laments lacking the power to fulfill it, likening this to the narrowness of the sleeves.
Contrasting the breadth of the heart and the narrowness of the sleeves, the poem expresses the gap between feeling and means.
First line, 'awaremamu to', means meaning to cherish, using the volitional mu. It is a hypermetric line.
Second line, 'omou kokoro wa', means the heart that thinks so.
Third line, 'hirokeredo', means though it is wide, the realis of the adjective followed by the concessive do.
Fourth line, 'hagukumu sode no', means of the sleeves that nurture, hagukumu deriving from a parent bird sheltering its chicks under its wings.
Final line, 'sebaku mo aru kana', means how narrow, pairing with hirokere in the third line and closing with the exclamatory kana.
- Source
- Kinyo Wakashu
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