Katagata ni hikiwakaretsutsu ayamegusa aranu ne o ya wa kakemu to omoishi - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

かたがたに引き別れつつあやめ草
あらぬねをやはかけむと思ひし

Roma-ji: Katagata ni hikiwakaretsutsu ayamegusa aranu ne o ya wa kakemu to omoishi
English Translation: Drawn apart, you there,
I here, pulled in separate ways,
like iris plants—
did I think I'd hang up these
strange roots, these sounds of weeping?
Meaning: Pulled apart, each of us in a different place, did I ever think that instead of iris roots I would be hanging out the unexpected sound of my own weeping?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1240

Headnote: "When she had long not gone to the palace, on the fifth day of the fifth month, in response to words from Retired Emperor Go-Suzaku."
This is the seventh poem of the sequence of love exchanges. Separated like iris plants pulled apart, she laments, did I ever think I would raise such unexpected sounds of weeping? According to the headnote, it was composed on the fifth day of the fifth month, when she had long stayed away from the palace, in response to words from Go-Suzaku.
The author, "Yōmeimon'in," is Princess Teishi. A daughter of Emperor Sanjō, she became empress to Emperor Go-Suzaku and bore Emperor Go-Sanjō. Yōmeimon'in is her title as a retired empress.
The fifth day of the fifth month was the Iris Festival. To ward off evil, irises were thatched onto the eaves, and medicine balls made of iris and mugwort were hung on pillars and blinds. Contests comparing the length of iris roots were also held.

The first line, "katagata ni," means "in separate directions." It shows that the author and Go-Suzaku are living apart.
In the second line, "hikiwakaretsutsu," the "hiki" carries the sense of pulling up iris plants and is an associated word for "ayamegusa" in the third line. The pulling apart of irises is overlaid on the couple's separation.
The third line, "ayamegusa," the iris, is the emblem of the festival and leads to "ne" in the fourth line.
In the fourth line, "aranu ne o ya wa," "ne" is a pivot word meaning both the iris "root" and the "sound" of weeping. "Aranu" means "unexpected, not what it should be": not the iris roots hung for the festival, but the sound of weeping. "Ya wa" is rhetorical.
In the last line, "kakemu to omoishi," "kaku" refers to hanging iris roots for the festival, overlaid with raising the sound of weeping. Receiving the rhetorical "ya wa" of the fourth line, it ends: I never imagined it would come to this.
Author: Princess Teishi (Yōmeimon'in)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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