Morasaba ya omou kokoro o sate nomi wa e zo yamashiro no ide no shigarami - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

もらさばや思ふ心をさてのみは
えぞやましろの井手のしがらみ

Roma-ji: Morasaba ya omou kokoro o sate nomi wa e zo yamashiro no ide no shigarami
English Translation: I would let it slip,
this heart so full of longing;
held back like this, no,
I can bear no more, like the weir
at Ide in Yamashiro.
Meaning: How I wish I could let slip this heart full of longing. Held back like this, I cannot bear it any longer, just as the weir at Ide in Yamashiro cannot hold back the rising water.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 1089

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "When composing many love poems."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on hidden love that turns on "letting slip." Likening herself to the weir at Ide, the speaker wishes to let her heart slip out, unable to go on holding it back. The headnote continues from the preceding poem; it is one of many love poems composed.
The author is Inpumon-in no Taifu, the daughter of Fujiwara no Nobunari. She served Princess Ryōshi, a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa known as Inpumon-in.
Ide, in Yamashiro Province (Ide, Tsuzuki District, Kyoto Prefecture), is a poetic place-name where the Tama River flows, sung together with yellow kerria and frogs.

The first line, "morasaba ya," means "how I wish to let it slip," with "baya" expressing the speaker's own wish. The poem breaks after the first line and through inversion runs on to "omou kokoro o" in the second. It forms a pair with "morasu na yo" in poem 1087 of this book, prohibition set against wish.
The second line, "omou kokoro o," is the same as the second line of the preceding poem. Where that poem spoke of a heart that hides its love unspoken, this one speaks of a heart that longs to let it slip, so two poems sharing the same line are set side by side in reversed composition.
The third line, "sate nomi wa," means "if only like this," pointing to the state of keeping love hidden.
In the fourth line, "e zo yamashiro no," "e" is an adverb that with a negative expresses impossibility, so "e zo yama," "I cannot hold it back," is joined to the place-name Yamashiro.
The last line, "ide no shigarami," is the weir built across the river at Ide; a weir unable to hold back the flooding water stands for love that cannot be restrained. Ending on a noun, the poem leaves the force of feelings about to break the dam lingering.
Author: Inpumon-in no Taifu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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