Yoso ni nomi mite ya yaminan Katsuragi ya Takama no yama no mine no shirakumo - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

よそにのみ見てや止みなん葛城や
高間の山の峰の白雲

Roma-ji: Yoso ni nomi mite ya yaminan Katsuragi ya Takama no yama no mine no shirakumo
English Translation: Only from afar
must I gaze, and so be done?
Katsuragi's
Mount Takama, on its peak
the white clouds drifting there
Meaning: Must it end with my only gazing from afar, as at the white clouds on the peak of Mount Takama in Katsuragi?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 990

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the first poem of a sequence on love known only from a distance, and it opens Love Poems I. Through the white clouds on the peak of Mount Takama, the speaker laments that it may all end with merely gazing from afar. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Anonymous," indicates a poem whose author's name has not come down to us.

The first line, "yoso ni nomi," means "only from afar." The distance of a love that can only look on from far away is set out at the very start of the book.
In the second line, "mite ya yaminan," the particle "ya" poses a question that is resolved by "nan": will it end with only gazing? The poem breaks after this line. The same phrase returns in 1018, the poem by Mitsune, which ends with "mite ya yaminan."
In the third line, "Katsuragi ya," the "ya" is exclamatory, calling up the land of Katsuragi in Yamato.
In the fourth line, Mount Takama is the chief peak of the Katsuragi range on the border of Yamato and Kawachi, said to be the old name of present-day Mount Kongō.
The last line, "mine no shirakumo," ends on a noun. The white clouds on a high peak, visible yet out of reach, stand for the beloved. Love Poems I thus opens with the beginning of a love that cannot yet draw near. The next poem also opens with "... ni nomi," setting a love known only by hearsay beside a love known only by sight.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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