Kokoro koso yukue mo shirane miwa no yama sugi no kozue no yūgure no sora - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

心こそ行方も知らね三輪の山
杉の梢の夕暮れの空

Roma-ji: Kokoro koso yukue mo shirane miwa no yama sugi no kozue no yūgure no sora
English Translation: It's my heart, rather,
whose way I cannot know now:
at Miwa mountain,
above the tips of cedars,
the sky of the evening falls.
Meaning: It is my own heart that has lost its way, wandering off toward the evening sky above the cedar tops of Mount Miwa.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 1327

Headnote: "On the topic 'Love Seeking,' at the hundred-poem contest at the house of the Regent and Grand Minister."
This is the tenth poem of the sequence of love's grief sung through autumn imagery. It is my heart that has lost its way, the speaker says, drifting to the evening sky above the cedar tops of Mount Miwa. According to the headnote, it was composed on the topic "Love Seeking" at a contest of hundred-poem sequences 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.
Mount Miwa is a poetic place in Yamato Province, regarded as the divine body of the Ōmiwa Shrine, whose sacred tree is the cedar. The foundation poem is the anonymous poem in Miscellaneous Poems II of the Kokinshū, "My hut is at the foot of Mount Miwa: if you long for me, come visit, where cedars stand by the gate." "Love Seeking" is a topic for love that goes in search of the beloved.

In the first line, "kokoro koso," "koso" is answered by the perfective form "shirane" in the second line and runs on concessively.
The second line, "yukue mo shirane," means "does not know its way, and yet." On a topic of seeking the beloved, it says it is the seeker's own heart whose whereabouts are unknown.
The third line, "miwa no yama," takes up the foundation poem's "Miwa no yama moto." There, the gate with cedars was offered as a landmark: come and visit if you long for me.
The fourth line, "sugi no kozue no," takes the cedars of the foundation poem's "cedars standing by the gate" and lifts the gaze from the gate to the treetops.
The last line, "yūgure no sora," ends on a noun. Looking up at the cedars that were the landmark for seeking, the heart only drifts into the evening sky above the treetops. It is the same last line as Jakuren's poem, 1302.
Author: Jien
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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