Kokinshu #939

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    It is indeed true
that this thing called compassion
    is nothing more than
an unbreakable shackle
binding me inside this world.

—11 January 2011

Original by Ono no Komachi. Interpreting this one hinges on how to understand aware: while it has come to mean specifically "pathos" or "sorrow," it originally also encompassed a more general "compassion" or even just "emotion". If read in the general sense, it's an orthodox Buddhist statement, but in the more specific ... well, honestly, I don't know what that would mean. A more subtle Buddhist statement? As for who is bound by aware, as usual there's no pronoun; while I'd prefer using "us" instead of "me" for the sound-shape of the line, that would make this Komachi's only impersonal statement among her surviving poems -- and coming right after #938 suggests the Kokinshu editors read it as personal, or wanted us to. (The final inflection doesn't help decide this, as it can indicate either realization of or indirect knowledge of an existing condition.)

And that's all of Komachi's poems from the Kokinshu -- which means I'm now ready to resume with book 2.


aware chô
koto koso utate
yo no naka o
omoihanarenu
hodashi narikere

---L.