Koishi tomo iwaba kokoro no yukubeki ni kurushi ya hitome tsutsumu omoi wa - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

恋しとも言はば心のゆくべきに
苦しや人目つつむ思ひは

Roma-ji: Koishi tomo iwaba kokoro no yukubeki ni kurushi ya hitome tsutsumu omoi wa
English Translation: If I could but say
"I love you," my heart at last
would be satisfied;
how painful, hiding from eyes,
this longing kept inside.
Meaning: If only I could say "I long for you," my heart would surely be at ease. How painful it is, this love I keep wrapped away for fear of others' eyes.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 1090

Headnote: "On the idea of 'Hidden Love.'"
This is the fifth poem of the sequence on hidden love that turns on "letting slip." The speaker says that to utter "I long for you" would ease the heart, but love kept wrapped away for fear of others' eyes is painful. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Hidden Love."
The author, "Poem of Retired Emperor Konoe," is Emperor Konoe. A son of Emperor Toba, his mother was Bifukumon-in Fujiwara no Nariko. He took the throne at the age of three and died at seventeen.

The first line, "koishi tomo," means "even that I love you," the "mo" adding the sense of "if only that one word."
In the second line, "iwaba kokoro no," "iwaba" is a hypothetical, the irrealis form followed by "ba": "if I were to say it." Poem 1092 in this book speaks from the side of one who endures in silence, "iwanu bakari wa shinobu tomo," so the heart that would be eased by speaking and the heart that endures unspoken form a pair.
In the third line, "yukubeki ni," "yuku" means the heart is cleared and satisfied, "beki" is conjectural, and "ni" is adversative: "it would be eased, and yet."
In the fourth line, "kurushi ya hitome," "kurushi ya" is the adjective "kurushi" with the exclamatory "ya," a sigh of "how painful." By inversion, what is painful is revealed only in the last line. "Hitome" means the eyes of others and runs on to "tsutsumu" in the last line.
The last line, "tsutsumu omoi wa," means "the love I keep wrapped away." As the close of the sequence, it arrives at the pain of hiding love from others' eyes while longing to let it slip.
Author: Emperor Konoe
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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