Ōyodo no ura ni tatsu nami kaerazu wa matsu no kawaranu iro o mimashi ya - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

大淀の浦に立つ波かへらずは
松の変はらぬ色を見ましや

Roma-ji: Ōyodo no ura ni tatsu nami kaerazu wa matsu no kawaranu iro o mimashi ya
English Translation: At Ōyodo Bay,
the waves that rise upon the shore—
had I not returned,
would I see the pines unchanged,
the color that does not change?
Meaning: Had I not come back, as the waves rising at Ōyodo Bay return, would I ever have seen again the unchanging green of the pines?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1606

Headnote: "Composed when, having gone down with my daughter the Ise Priestess, I performed purification at Ōyodo Bay."
This is the first poem of a sequence on the pines of the bays. Had she not come back, as the waves of Ōyodo Bay return, she would never have seen the unchanging color of the pines. According to the headnote, it was composed when she accompanied her daughter, the new Ise Priestess, down to Ise and performed purification at Ōyodo Bay.
The author, "Nyōgo Kishi Joō," was a daughter of Prince Shigeakira, a son of Emperor Daigo. She became a consort of Emperor Murakami and was called the Saigū Consort.
In her youth Princess Kishi had herself gone down to Ise as the Ise Priestess, and later, when her daughter Princess Noriko became Priestess, she accompanied her down to Ise once more.
The Ise Priestess was an unmarried imperial princess who served the Ise Shrine in the emperor's stead and from time to time purified herself in rites of ablution. Ōyodo Bay lies on the coast of Ise Province, around present-day Meiwa in Taki District, Mie Prefecture.

The first line, "Ōyodo no," names Ōyodo Bay in Ise.
The second line, "ura ni tatsu nami," is the waves rising in the bay. It presents waves that break and return, leading to the following "kaerazu."
The third line, "kaerazu wa," pivots on the waves returning and on the poet herself returning to this place. "Zu wa" means "if it had not."
The fourth line, "matsu no kawaranu," means "of the pines that do not change." The evergreen pine is an emblem of what stays unchanged through the years.
The last line, "iro o mimashi ya," adds the rhetorical "ya" to "mashi," the auxiliary of counterfactual supposition: "would I have seen it? No." Answering "zu wa" in the third line, it expresses her emotion at visiting Ise once again.
Author: Princess Kishi
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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