SIS XI: 664

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玉簾のすける心と見てしよりつらしてふ事かけぬ日はなし

tamadare no
sukeru kokoro to
mitesi yori
turasi teFu koto
kakenu Fi Fa nasi
Screened with jewels
Is your wanton heart;
Since encountering it,
How cruel life is, I
Cry with every passing day.

Anonymous

2 thoughts on “SIS XI: 664”

  1. I’m getting a little tripped up with つらしてふこと. Grammatically, is it something like “it seems as if [this life] is cruel/painful/bitter” ? I can’t find an entry on Weblio that is different from the modern sense of ということ.

    For かけぬ日もなし, is the sense something like “not a day goes by without feeling〜” ?

    1. Yes, you have the sense of this right. てふ is an elided form of といふ.かけぬ日もなし is literally ‘there is not even a day when [I] do not feel’. There’s a slight pun involved, in that kaku, can also mean ‘hang’ and this links with the screen (hanging) of jewels mentioned at the beginning of the poem.

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