Koi o nomi suma no urabito moshio tare hoshiaenu sode no hate o shiraba ya - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

恋をのみすまの浦人藻塩垂れ
干しあへぬ袖の果てを知らばや

Roma-ji: Koi o nomi suma no urabito moshio tare hoshiaenu sode no hate o shiraba ya
English Translation: Doing naught but love,
like a fisher of Suma
dripping with sea brine,
I would know what end awaits
these sleeves that never can dry.
Meaning: Doing nothing but love, I am like the fisherfolk of Suma, drenched as they drip brine over the seaweed; I wish I knew what end awaits these sleeves of mine that can never be dried.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 1083

Headnote: "When presenting a hundred-poem sequence."
This is the third poem of the group expressing hidden love through smoke and seaside imagery. The speaker, soaked with tears from loving and nothing else, wishes to know what will become of sleeves that can never dry. According to the headnote, it was composed when a hundred-poem sequence was presented to Retired Emperor Go-Toba.
The author, "Regent and Grand Chancellor," is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. The son of Regent Kujō Kanezane, he rose to regent and grand chancellor and wrote the kana preface to the Shin Kokinshū.
Suma Bay, in Settsu Province (Suma Ward, Kōbe, Hyōgo Prefecture), is a poetic place-name associated with fishers burning seaweed and with the lonely dwellings of exiles. The source poem is Ariwara no Yukihira's Kokinshū poem, "Should anyone chance to ask of me, answer that on Suma Bay I pine, dripping with brine from the seaweed."

The first line, "koi o nomi," means "nothing but love," and joined to "su" (to do) in the second line it means "doing nothing but love."
In the second line, "suma no urabito," "suma" holds both "su," to do nothing but love, and the place-name Suma. The speaker, living only for love, is laid over the figure of a fisher dwelling on Suma Bay.
The third line, "moshio tare," is the pouring and dripping of brine over seaweed to make salt, a figure for being soaked with tears. It takes "moshio taretsutsu" from Yukihira's source poem, and after the "salt fire" of the preceding poem the image of seaweed salt is repeated.
The fourth line, "hoshiaenu sode no," means "of sleeves that cannot be dried," showing sleeves so steeped in tears that they have no time to dry.
In the last line, "hate o shiraba ya," "baya" expresses the speaker's own wish: "I would like to know where it will end." Where poem 1081 in this book grieved over the end of love in "hate zo kanashiki," this poem wishes to know that end.
Author: Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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