Kaerikomu hodo o ya hito ni chigiramashi shinobarenubeki waga mi nariseba

English Translation

The time I'll return—
might I then have promised it
to the one I leave,
if I were a man who would
surely be remembered dearly?

Meaning

Would I have promised that person when I would come back, if only I were someone sure to be longed for and remembered?

Commentary

Book Nine Parting Poems 882

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on the heart of parting."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on partings where the time of return cannot be promised. If he were someone who would be fondly remembered, the speaker says, he would promise when he would return, but since he is not, he makes no promise. The headnote continues from the preceding poem, and the poem was composed on the topic of the heart of parting.
The author was a monk of the late Heian period and one of the poets who gathered at Shun'e's Karin'en.
The scene is a parting from someone, and the place is not recorded.
The direct occasion, as with the preceding poem, was composition on the topic "the heart of parting."

The first line, "kaerikomu," means "when I will return." It is the same word as the first line of 878, so poems about the time of return are set side by side.
The second line, "hodo o ya hito ni," means "that time, to that person," the particle "ya" posing a question.
The third line, "chigiramashi," means "would I have promised," closing in the attributive form of "mashi" in response to "ya," and the poem breaks here. It pairs with "seba" in the last line to form a counterfactual construction.
In the fourth line, "shinobarenubeki," "shinobu" means to remember with longing. The passive "ru," the intensifying "nu," and the conjectural "beshi" combine to mean "surely to be longed for."
The last line, "waga mi nariseba," means "if I were such a one," placing the supposition at the end by inversion. Through self-deprecation, the sense that he is not someone to be longed for, the poem speaks of a parting without promise. Where 880 makes no promise because the parting was sudden, this poem gives the reason that he is not someone to be missed, so the reason for a parting without promise is shown from yet another direction.

Author

Tōren

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other