Ima zo shiru omoiide yo to chigirishi wa wasuremu tote no nasake narikeri - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

今ぞ知る思ひ出でよと契りしは
忘れむとての情けなりけり

Roma-ji: Ima zo shiru omoiide yo to chigirishi wa wasuremu tote no nasake narikeri
English Translation: Now at last I know:
when you vowed, "Remember me,"
it was a kindness
from one who meant, even then,
to forget me in the end.
Meaning: Now at last I understand: when you made me promise, "Remember me," it was the kindness of someone who already meant to forget.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1298

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the eighth and last poem of the sequence on love being forgotten. Now I understand, the speaker says, that when you asked me to remember you, it was the kindness of one who meant to forget. As with the preceding poem, the headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances are not recorded.
No author is named in the original; continuing from the preceding poem, it is by Saigyō. His lay name was Satō Norikiyo; he served as a guard of the north quarter under Retired Emperor Toba, took holy orders at twenty-three, and traveled the provinces composing poetry.
The main text has the mark "〈墨〉°" at its beginning, but it is not part of the poem and has been removed.

The first line, "ima zo shiru," means "now at last I know," and the poem breaks after it; "shiru" takes the attributive form in answer to "zo."
The second line, "omoiide yo to," means "saying 'remember me.'" It is the same phrase as the first line of Ietaka's poem, 1294; there it was the speaker's words to the other, while here it is the other's parting words to the speaker.
The third line, "chigirishi wa," means "what you vowed."
The fourth line, "wasuremu tote no," means "from one meaning to forget." It reveals that the words "remember me" came precisely because the other intended to forget.
In the last line, "nasake narikeri," "keri" marks realization. Seeing through both the kindness and the coldness behind the parting words, it closes the sequence on love being forgotten with an insight that reduces it to reason.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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