Omoitsutsu henikeru toshi no kai ya naki tada aramashi no yūgure no sora - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひつつ経にける年のかひやなき
ただあらましの夕暮の空

Roma-ji: Omoitsutsu henikeru toshi no kai ya naki tada aramashi no yūgure no sora
English Translation: Longing all the while,
the years that I have passed through,
were they all in vain?
Nothing but what I imagine:
the sky at evening's dusk
Meaning: Have all the years I spent in longing been in vain? There is only what I picture in my mind, and the evening sky at dusk.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 1033

Headnote: "When the men at Minase composed on the topic 'Long Love.'"
This is the first poem of a sequence on love long kept hidden. The years spent in longing seem to have been in vain; the speaker only imagines the lover's coming and gazes at the evening sky. According to the headnote, it was composed when the men in attendance at Minase wrote on the topic "Long Love."
The author, "The Retired Emperor," is Retired Emperor Go-Toba. The fourth son of Emperor Takakura, he ruled as retired emperor after abdicating, established the Bureau of Poetry, commanded the compilation of the Shin Kokin Wakashū, and was himself deeply involved in its selection.
Minase lies in Settsu Province, in present-day Shimamoto Town, Osaka, where Retired Emperor Go-Toba had a detached palace.

The first line, "omoitsutsu," means "longing all the while."
The second line, "henikeru toshi no," means "of the years I have passed," expressing the "long" of the topic.
In the third line, "ya" poses a question resolved by "naki": were they in vain? The poem breaks here.
In the fourth line, "aramashi" means picturing beforehand how one wishes things to be.
The last line, "yūgure no sora," ends on a noun. Evening is the hour of waiting for a lover's visit; the speaker can only imagine that he may come and gaze at the sky. After the summer loves of the preceding poems, the book moves to a love of long years. 998 and 999 likewise sang of feeling accumulated over years with "toshi o hete" and "toshitsuki wa."
Author: Go-Toba In
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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