Sato wa arenu onoe no miya no onozukara machikoshi yoi mo mukashi narikeri - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

里は荒れぬ尾上の宮のおのづから
待ち来し宵も昔なりけり

Roma-ji: Sato wa arenu onoe no miya no onozukara machikoshi yoi mo mukashi narikeri
English Translation: The village lies waste;
here on the mountain palace
the evenings when I
waited, as of their own accord,
have now become the long ago.
Meaning: The village has fallen to ruin. In the palace on the mountain ridge, the evenings I once spent waiting, as if by nature, now belong to the distant past.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1313

Headnote: "For the Minase Contest of Fifteen Love Poems."
This is the second poem of the sequence of love poems from the contests at the Bureau of Poetry and at Minase. The village has fallen to ruin, the speaker says, and even the evenings of waiting in the mountain palace have become the past. According to the headnote, it was submitted to the Minase Contest of Fifteen Love Poems.
The author, "the Retired Sovereign," is Retired Emperor Go-Toba. A son of Emperor Takakura, he ruled as retired emperor after abdicating and commanded the compilation of the Shinkokinshū. "Retired Sovereign" is the title of an emperor who has abdicated and here refers to Go-Toba, the retired emperor at the time the collection was made.
Minase, in Settsu Province, was the site of Retired Emperor Go-Toba's detached palace. The Minase Contest of Fifteen Love Poems was held there, with poets composing on fifteen love topics and their poems matched in rounds.

The first line, "sato wa arenu," has six syllables, one more than the norm, and means "the village has fallen to ruin"; the poem breaks after it. It opens in the same way as the preceding poem, and the two are placed side by side.
In the second line, "onoe no miya no," "onoe" is a mountain ridge, and "onoe no miya" a palace on the heights.
The third line, "onozukara," means "of its own accord, before one knew it." It echoes the sound of "onoe" in the second line, giving the lines a flowing rhythm.
The fourth line, "machikoshi yoi mo," means "the evenings I spent waiting." It takes up the evenings of waiting so often sung in this book.
In the last line, "mukashi narikeri," "keri" marks realization. It closes on the grief of realizing that even the waiting now belongs to the past. Where Jakuren in the preceding poem sang of the autumn wind blowing to the empty bed, here the waiting evenings themselves have passed into history, treating the same first line on another scale of time.
Author: Go-Toba In
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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