Omoiki ya wakareshi aki ni meguriaite mata mo kono yo no tsuki o min to wa - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひきや別れし秋にめぐり逢ひて
またもこの世の月を見んとは

Roma-ji: Omoiki ya wakareshi aki ni meguriaite mata mo kono yo no tsuki o min to wa
English Translation: Did I ever think—
meeting again the autumn
when I took my leave—
that I would once more gaze upon
the moon of this world of ours?
Meaning: Did I ever imagine that, meeting again the autumn in which I bade farewell to the world, I would see the moon of this world once more?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1531

Headnote: "Composed when the moon shone without a cloud past the tenth of the ninth month, in the autumn of the year after I had renounced the world at the end of an autumn, sunk in illness."
This is the first poem of the sequence reflecting on oneself through the moon. The poet never imagined, he says, that meeting again the autumn in which he bade farewell to the world, he would see the moon of this world once more. According to the headnote, having taken the tonsure because of serious illness at the end of an autumn, he composed it in the autumn of the following year, past the tenth of the ninth month, when the moon shone without a cloud.
The author, "Master of the Empress Dowager's Household Shunzei," is Fujiwara no Shunzei. He was the son of Fujiwara no Toshitada and the father of Teika. He served as Master of the Empress Dowager's Household and took the tonsure in Angen 2 (1176). He compiled the Senzai Wakashū.

The first line, "omoiki ya," adds the rhetorical "ya" to the past "ki," meaning "did I ever think?—I never did." The poem breaks after the first line, and the last lines answer it in inverted order.
The second line, "wakareshi aki ni," refers to the autumn of the previous year, when, sunk in illness, he renounced the world. It is the autumn in which he had resigned himself to parting from this world.
The third line, "meguriaite," is hypermetric and refers to meeting the same season again. It is the same line as "meguriaite," the first line of 1499 in this book, and "meguru" is also an associated word of the moon.
The fourth line, "mata mo kono yo no," means "once more, of this world." It shows that one who had resigned himself to death is still in this world.
The last line, "tsuki o min to wa," places at the end, in inverted order, the content of "omoiki ya" in the first line. It sings of the deep feeling of living on to see the moon again, and from here poems follow that reflect through the moon on one's own age and past.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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