Koto naraba kimi tomaru beku niowanamu kaesu wa hana no uki ni ya wa aranu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ことならば君とまるべくにほはなむ
帰すは花の憂きにやはあらぬ

Roma-ji: Koto naraba kimi tomaru beku niowanamu kaesu wa hana no uki ni ya wa aranu
English Translation: If it be the same,
then so that you might stay,
let the blossoms glow;
to send you home—would that not be
a sorrow for the flowers too?
Meaning: If they must bloom anyway, let the blossoms glow so beautifully that you will stay. To let you go home—would that not be a grief for the flowers as well?
Commentary: Book Eight Parting Poems 395

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed beneath the cherry blossoms on the way back after climbing the mountain for the relic service of the Prince of Urin'in"
Like the preceding poem, this one was composed beneath the cherry trees on the way back from the relic service of the Prince of Urin'in. If the blossoms are to bloom anyway, let them glow so beautifully that people stay; letting people go home would surely be a pity for the flowers too. Speaking to the blossoms, the poet tries to have them hold people back.
The author, "Priest Yūsen," was a monk of Enryakuji on Mount Hiei.

The first line, "if it be the same," means "if it is all the same," expressing the feeling of "if you must bloom anyway." It shares a word of the same sense with koto wa in poem 402 of this book, "darken the sky and fall, if fall you must."
The second line, "so that you might stay," uses beku, "so that," to give the purpose of the blossoms' glow.
The third line, "let the blossoms glow," uses niou, to bloom in radiant color, with the desiderative namu. The poem breaks after this line. Like "scatter them wild" in the third line of the preceding poem, it states a wish and breaks at the third line, and the two form a pair of scattering and glowing blossoms.
The fourth line, "to send you home," shifts the subject to the flowers: sending you home would be, for the blossoms.
The last line, "would that not be a sorrow?" uses the rhetorical yawa to plead that it must surely be painful.
Author: Priest Yūsen
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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