Yo no naka ni

世の中に/まじらぬとには/あらねども
　　　ひとり遊びぞ/我はまされる
(良寛 1758-1831)

yo no naka ni / majiranu to ni ha / aranedomo
　　　hitori asobi zo / ware ha masareru
(Ryokan 1758-1831)

it's not that
I don't want to mix
with the world
　　　fun on my own -
　　　I'm better at it


I don't know why, but the tanka I've looked at seem to be far more difficult to translate and interpret than haiku, though it might be because the haiku is so short it largely does away with grammar. In this case there are other translations on the net (here and here), though for me the transliteration was a bit strange, so I didn't find them immediately. My translation is slightly different than the first for the last two lines, because it seems to me they mean 'I'm better at having fun on my own than with other people' instead of the similar 'I'm better at amusing myself than other people are at amusing me' the alternative translation suggests. After all, 'hitori asobi' is literally 'playing alone'.

However, the second translation is more convincing, and I wonder whether my translation would be more correct with 'alone is better' as the last line. The difficulty for me to choose is that 'ware ha masareru' seems to translate literally as 'I'm better', and the two possibilities I've suggested are both subtly different. If you know how best to interpret these last two lines let me know.

Alternate searches:

'majiranu to ni wa' 'ware wa masareru'