Waga koi o hito shirurame ya shikitae no makura nomi koso shiraba shirurame - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

わが恋を人知るらめや敷妙の
枕のみこそ知らば知るらめ

Roma-ji: Waga koi o hito shirurame ya shikitae no makura nomi koso shiraba shirurame
English Translation: This love of mine
could anyone know of it
only my pillow
spread with finest cloth, perhaps
if anything knows, it knows
Meaning: Could anyone know of my love? No one could. If anything knows of it, it is only my pillow, wet each night with tears.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 504

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poem sings that the only one who knows of a love confided to no one is the pillow, wet with tears night after night. Through the conceit of the pillow as the sole witness, the image of one weeping alone at night quietly emerges. It entrusts the loneliness of a hidden love to an intimate object of the bedchamber.

First line, "This love of mine": waga koi wo means my love.
Second line, "could anyone know of it": hito shirurame ya is rhetorical, "would anyone know? surely not," and the poem pauses here. The next poem, 505, uses the same phrase in its fourth line, singing of a love unknown to others.
Third line, "spread with finest cloth, perhaps": shikitae no is a pillow word for pillows.
Fourth line, "only my pillow": makura nomi koso means "only the pillow," and koso forms a kakari-musubi with rame at the end.
Fifth line, "if anything knows, it knows": shiraba shirurame means "if it knows, it would know," meaning only the tear-soaked pillow is witness to love. The rhetorical shirurame ya of the second line answers the conjecture shirurame of the last.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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