Omoiidete yonayona tsuki ni tazunezu wa mate to chigirishi naka ya taenamu - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひ出でて夜な夜な月に尋ねずは
待てと契りし中や絶えなむ

Roma-ji: Omoiidete yonayona tsuki ni tazunezu wa mate to chigirishi naka ya taenamu
English Translation: If I did not think
of you, and ask the moon night
after night of you,
would the bond in which you vowed,
"Wait for me," now break apart?
Meaning: If I did not remember you and ask the moon about you night after night, would the bond we vowed when you said, "Wait for me," come to an end?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1278

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
This is the twenty-third poem of the sequence of love poems on the moon. If I did not remember and ask the moon each night, the speaker wonders, would the bond in which you said "Wait for me" come to an end? The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "the Regent and Grand Minister," is Fujiwara no Yoshitsune. A son of the Chancellor Kujō Kanezane, he rose to regent and grand minister and was called the Go-Kyōgoku Regent. He wrote the Japanese preface to the Shinkokinshū.

The first line, "omoiidete," means "remembering you."
The second line, "yonayona tsuki ni," means "night after night, to the moon." Taking up the returning moon of the preceding poem, it makes the moon seen each night a thread linking the speaker to the beloved.
The third line, "tazunezu wa," is conditional: "if I did not ask."
The fourth line, "mate to chigirishi," means "vowed, saying 'wait for me.'" The poem is composed from the position of a woman who waits.
In the last line, "naka ya taenamu," "ya" is interrogative and "namu" a strong conjecture: "would our bond break off?" It shows a heart for which only the nightly questioning of the moon barely holds together a bond on the verge of breaking.
Author: Fujiwara no Yoshitsune
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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