Yamazato ni chigirishi io ya arenuramu mataremu to dani omowazarishi o - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

山里に契りし庵や荒れぬらむ
待たれむとだに思はざりしを

Roma-ji: Yamazato ni chigirishi io ya arenuramu mataremu to dani omowazarishi o
English Translation: The hermit's hut I pledged
to live in in the mountain village—
has it gone to ruin?
I never even thought that
it would come to wait for me.
Meaning: Has the hut in the mountain village where I vowed to live fallen into ruin? I never even thought it would be left waiting for me.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems III 1757

Headnote: "On the feeling of personal grievance, at the Poetry Office."
This is the first of a sequence composed at the Poetry Office on the feeling of personal grievance. Has the hut in the mountain village where he vowed to live gone to ruin? He never thought he would be away so long as to leave it waiting. Longing for seclusion, he laments that official duties keep him from returning to the mountains. According to the headnote, it was composed at the Poetry Office on the feeling of personal grievance.
The author, "Former Archbishop Jien," is Jien. No author is named in the original; the attribution continues from the preceding poem. A son of Fujiwara no Tadamichi and younger brother of Kujō Kanezane, he served four times as Tendai abbot and wrote the historical treatise Gukanshō.
The Poetry Office was established by Retired Emperor Go-Toba at his palace in Kennin 1 for the compilation of the Shin Kokinshū.

The first line, "yamazato ni," is a mountain village as a place of seclusion.
In the second line, "chigirishi io ya," meaning "the hut I vowed to live in," "ya" is a particle of question.
The third line, "arenuramu," closes the kakari-musubi of "ya" with the attributive form of the present conjectural "ramu." He imagines the hut going to ruin with its master absent, and the poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "mataremu to dani," means "even that it would be waiting for me." The hut is pictured as a person awaiting its master's return.
In the last line, "omowazarishi o," "o" is a concessive particle with a sigh. It shows his regret at having stayed away long when he meant to return soon; poems on personal grievance at the Poetry Office follow.
Author: Jien
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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