Practise the thinking. Keep the judgement.
ながらへば
Fujiwara no Kiyosuke · 藤原清輔朝臣
ながらへば
また此の頃や
しのばれむ
憂しと見し世ぞ
今は戀しき
Historical kana
ながらへば
またこのごろや
しのばれむ
うしとみしよぞ
いまはこひしき
Original English translation
If I live on, will I remember these days fondly too? A world I once found painful is now dear to me.
History and context
Kiyosuke was a poet and scholar of waka. His Shinkokinshū poem makes changing memory, rather than a single external landscape, its central subject.
Imagery and wordplay
Present hardship may become future nostalgia. The poem uses an earlier reversal as evidence for another one.
Shinkokinshū · 新古今集雑下1843
Japanese text and historical kana follow the linked Wikisource transcription. Classical poems can have variant spellings and wording in different anthologies. The source anthology reference identifies the version represented in this collection, not necessarily its earliest surviving text. English prose translations and reading notes are original interpretations; some wordplay permits more than one reading.