Waga koi wa shiru hito mo nashi seku toko no namida morasu na tsuge no omakura - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

我が恋は知る人もなしせく床の
涙もらすなつげの小枕

Roma-ji: Waga koi wa shiru hito mo nashi seku toko no namida morasu na tsuge no omakura
English Translation: This love of mine is
one that no one knows of: so
do not let them spill,
the tears I dam upon my bed,
little pillow of boxwood
Meaning: No one knows of this love of mine. Little boxwood pillow, whose name speaks of telling, do not let spill the tears I hold back upon my bed.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 1036

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On 'Hidden Love,' from a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on love long kept hidden. Since no one knows of her love, she calls on her little boxwood pillow not to let spill the tears she holds back in bed. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Hidden Love" in the same hundred-poem sequence as the preceding poem.
The author, "Princess Shokushi," continues from the preceding poem and was a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. She served as High Priestess of the Kamo Shrines and later took holy orders. She studied poetry under Fujiwara no Shunzei.
The foundation poem is Taira no Sadafumi's in the Kokin Wakashū: "makura yori / mata shiru hito mo / naki koi o / namida sekiaezu / morashitsuru kana."

The first line, "waga koi wa," opens with the same first line as 1029 and 1030.
The second line, "shiru hito mo nashi," means "no one knows of it," and the poem breaks here.
In the third line, "seku" means to dam the flowing tears, naming the bed where she holds back her weeping alone.
In the fourth line, "na" is prohibitive: do not let the tears spill.
In the last line, "tsuge" pivots between boxwood, the pillow's wood, and "tsuge," to tell, and the noun ending calls out to the pillow. Where Sadafumi's foundation poem laments that the tears could not be held and spilled out, this one turns to commanding the pillow not to let them spill. Princess Shokushi's three poems sing of hidden love from different sides: life, the passing months, and the pillow.
Author: Princess Shokushi
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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