Front
Back
Japanese
English
Audio: NHK Creative Library
Read by LibriVox volunteer Larry Wilson.
Audio courtesy of LibriVox (Public Domain).
中納言朝忠
逢ふことの
絶えてしなくは
なかなかに
人をも身をも
恨みざらまし
ひとをもみ
をもうらみ
さらまし
おうこ
- Poem 44
- 逢ふことの
絶えてしなくは
なかなかに
人をも身をも 恨みざらまし
Author: Middle Counselor Asatada (910–966)
Source: Shūi Wakashū, Love
- English Verse Translation
- To fall in love with womankind Is my unlucky fate; If only it were otherwise, I might
appreciate Some men, whom now I hate.
— William N. Porter, 1909
- Modern Translation
- If there were no meetings at all, I would not have to suffer. It is because we meet that parting brings such pain.
- Commentary
- This poem was composed at the Tentoku Poetry Contest at the Imperial Palace. It is read in two ways — either as a poem about "love not yet met," or as a poem about "love met, then unmet again." In the latter reading, the poet once knew the happiness of requited love, only to be treated coldly afterward, and the poem expresses both his regret that they had ever met at all, and the frustration of still being unable to forget her, haunted by the memory of their time together.
- About the Poet
- Middle Counselor Asatada, Fujiwara no Asatada, was born the fifth son of the Minister of the Right of Sanjō, Fujiwara no Sadakata (Poem 25), and rose to the rank of Middle Counselor, Junior Third Rank. In addition to poetry, he was known as a master of the shō (a wind instrument). His daughter Bokushi's own daughter, incidentally, was Rinshi, who would later become the wife of Fujiwara no Michinaga.
- Middle Counselor Asatada's Chart of the Heart
-
A chart and a modern-language reflection of the poet's inner feelings.
The Poet's Feelings (A Personal Interpretation)
The day we met, I was so happy.
And yet now, only that memory
tightens around my chest.I tell myself it would have been better
never to have met you —
but I cannot forget you.
- Poem Illustration
-
This image is based on an illustration from William N. Porter's A Hundred Verses from Old Japan, his 1909 English translation of the Hyakunin Isshu published in England, colorized and reworked using Adobe Firefly (generative AI).