Arikitsutsu kitsutsu miredomo isagiyoki hito no kokoro o ware wasureme ya - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ありきつつ来つつ見れどもいさぎよき
人の心を我忘れめや

Roma-ji: Arikitsutsu kitsutsu miredomo isagiyoki hito no kokoro o ware wasureme ya
English Translation: Wandering about,
coming again and again,
I look—yet the pure
and unclouded human heart,
could I ever forget it?
Meaning: I wander about and come again and again to look upon the world, yet could I ever forget a pure and untainted human heart?
Commentary: Book Nineteen Poems on the Gods 1863

Headnote: "It is said to be a poem of the Iwashimizu Deity."
This is the twelfth poem in the sequence of poems composed by the gods. Though I wander about and come again and again to look upon people, says the god, I will never forget a pure heart. The left note says only that it is a poem of the Iwashimizu Deity and records no circumstances. The god, who has looked into countless human hearts, shows that it is the pure-hearted whom he keeps in mind.
The poem has no headnote; a left note follows it instead. In this text the left note is placed under the number of the next poem, but its content shows that it belongs to this poem, so it is cited here as the headnote.
No author is named in the original. According to the left note, the poem is regarded as the utterance of the deity of Iwashimizu. Iwashimizu Hachimangū stands on Mount Otoko in Yamashiro Province and enshrines the god Hachiman, brought there from the Usa Hachiman Shrine in Buzen Province.

The first line, "arikitsutsu," means "wandering about." "Ariku" is a verb meaning to go here and there, joined by the particle "tsutsu" of repeated action.
The second line, "kitsutsu miredomo," means "though I come again and again to look." Repeating the "tsutsu" of the first line, it shows the god ceaselessly watching over the human world.
The third line, "isagiyoki," means "pure and untainted."
The fourth line, "hito no kokoro o," means "the human heart." Taking up "kokoro to o shire" in the preceding poem, it continues the theme of the human heart.
The last line, "ware wasureme ya," means "could I forget? No, never." "Me," the perfective of the conjectural "mu," with the particle "ya" forms a rhetorical question. It corresponds to "ware mo wasureji" in poem 1859 of this book, both gods vowing not to forget people. The next poem is by the Usa Deity, so two poems of Hachiman stand together.
Author: Iwashimizu Hachiman Deity (per the left note)
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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