Kokoro araba fukazu mo aranamu yoiyoi ni hito matsu yado no niwa no matsukaze - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

心あらば吹かずもあらなむ宵々に
人待つ宿の庭の松風

Roma-ji: Kokoro araba fukazu mo aranamu yoiyoi ni hito matsu yado no niwa no matsukaze
English Translation: If you have a heart,
I wish that you would not blow,
night after night now,
in the garden of my house
where I wait, O wind in the pines.
Meaning: If you have a heart, I wish you would not blow, wind in the garden pines, night after night at this house where I wait for someone.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1311

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "For a poetry contest at my house."
This is the eighth and last poem of the sequence on waiting for a lover, sung through the wind. If you have a heart, do not blow, the speaker says, wind in the garden pines of this house where I wait night after night. Continuing from the preceding poem, it was submitted to the poetry contest held at the house of Fujiwara no Yoshitsune.
The author, "the Former Archbishop Jien," was a son of the Chancellor Fujiwara no Tadamichi; he served four times as head of the Tendai school and wrote the history Gukanshō. "Former Archbishop" means one who formerly held the office of archbishop.

The first line, "kokoro araba," is conditional: "if you have a heart." It personifies the pine wind, asking it to have feeling.
In the second line, "fukazu mo aranamu," "namu" expresses a wish toward another: "I wish you would not blow." The poem breaks after this line.
The third line, "yoiyoi ni," means "night after night." It is the same word as the first line of 1234, the opening poem of this book, and shows the heart that longs and waits every night.
The fourth line, "hito matsu yado no," means "of the house where I wait for someone."
The last line, "niwa no matsukaze," is the same last line as Yoshitsune's poem, 1304. The pine wind that Yoshitsune asked to ease is here asked not to blow at all, so that poems from contests at the same house answer each other at the beginning and end of the sequence. It closes by showing how the sound of the pine wind, mistaken for a visitor, torments the waiting heart all the more.
Author: Jien
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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