Hyakunin Isshu #44

[lnhammer]

    On the contrary,
were we to never again
    meet each other,
then I would no longer feel
bitter about her -- or myself.

—6 March 2010

Original by Fujiwara no Asatada, son of Sadataka (#25). Urami is another broad-spectrum emotion word, meaning anywhere in the range regret/resent/blame/grudge/bitterness/malice/hatred. What's resented is not specified -- the traditional interpretation is the other person's coldness and his own pain, but it reads to me as he blames his own behavior as much as hers.


au koto no
taete shi nakuba
nakanaka ni
hito o mo mi o mo
uramizaramashi

---L.

Comments

[ex_asakiyume313]

Love the sentiment expressed in this, and I like how you say it.

(I've been enjoying all your translations)

[lnhammer]

Thankee. I like this one a lot, more than I expected when I first started on it. Judging by how other translators tackle it, there seems to be a range of opinions of how to interpret it -- many of them not very compelling.

---L.