Shinobaji yo ishimazutai no tanigawa mo se o seku ni koso mizu masarikere - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

忍ばじよ石間伝ひの谷川も
瀬を堰くにこそ水まさりけれ

Roma-ji: Shinobaji yo ishimazutai no tanigawa mo se o seku ni koso mizu masarikere
English Translation: I will hide no more:
even the mountain stream
that threads among stones
swells only all the higher
when its shallows are dammed up.
Meaning: I will hide my love no longer. Even the mountain stream that threads its way among the stones rises all the higher for being dammed at the shallows.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 1097

Headnote: "At a poetry contest of the Bureau of Poetry, on 'Love That Grows by Being Hidden.'"
This is the first poem of a sequence on hidden love that can no longer be held back. Reasoning that a mountain stream threading among stones rises all the higher for being dammed, the speaker resolves to hide no longer, since love only grows by concealment. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Love That Grows by Being Hidden" at a poetry contest of the Bureau of Poetry.
The author, "Kintsugu, Provisional Master of the Crown Prince's Household," is Fujiwara no Kintsugu. The son of Minister of the Left Fujiwara no Sanesada, he later rose to minister of the left and was called the Nonomiya Minister of the Left.

The first line, "shinobaji yo," means "I will hide no more," the negative volitional "ji" joined to "yo." The poem breaks after the first line; amid a run of poems on hidden love, it declares an end to hiding.
The second line, "ishimazutai no," means "threading among the stones."
In the third line, "tanigawa mo," "mo" means "the mountain stream too," borrowing a law of nature and applying it to the speaker's love. Where the valley stream of poem 1086 in this book let a hidden heart seep out, here the water swells because it is dammed.
The fourth line, "se o seku ni koso," means "precisely because the shallows are dammed," the particle "koso" forming a bound construction with the perfective "kere" of the last line. The weir at Ide in poem 1089 of this book likewise tied damming to feelings that could not be held back.
The last line, "mizu masarikere," means "the water rises." It presents the topic "Love That Grows by Being Hidden" as the law of dammed water swelling, and reveals the reason for "shinobaji" in the first line.
Author: Fujiwara no Kintsugu
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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