Yuku hito wa sono kami komu to iu mono o kokorobososhi ya kyō no wakare wa

English Translation

One who goes away
will say he means to come back
by and by — and yet
how forlorn a thing it is
this parting, here, today

Meaning

One who goes away will say he means to come back by and by. And yet how forlorn a thing this parting is, today.

Commentary

102 This Day's Parting

Sakai no Hitozane, Governor of Tosa, composed this poem when, weakened by illness, he was going to his house at Toba. The prose says no more, and the section consists of this single poem.
Sakai no Hitozane served as Governor of Tosa and has a poem in the Kokin-shū. Toba lies south of the capital.
The setting is his removal to Toba as his illness grew worse — a departure from the capital.
What prompted the poem was that journey: leaving the city in ill health.
The section ends with the poem; no response and no later event is recorded. The hundred and first section gives the parting poem of the sick Suenawa, and this one is placed as another poem of a parting made in illness.

The opening states the ordinary case: a man setting out says he will be back before long.
It puts the customary formula first, as a general truth. What follows is left to show, without saying it, that he cannot use it.
The fourth line is an exclamation of forlornness.
The closing names the day's parting and stops there, without a verb. Nothing is said of how ill he is or whether he will return; the whole of it rests on a formula he cannot speak.

Source

Yamato Monogatari

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