Azumaji no Saya no Nakayama nakanaka ni nani shika hito o omoisomekemu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

東路の小夜の中山なかなかに
何しか人を思ひそめけむ

Roma-ji: Azumaji no Saya no Nakayama nakanaka ni nani shika hito o omoisomekemu
English Translation: On the eastern road,
Saya-no-Nakayama pass;
halfway, half-hearted,
why was it that I began
to set my heart on you?
Meaning: Like the pass of Saya no Nakayama on the eastern road, I am caught halfway; why did I ever begin to love you at all?
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 594

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Using the name of Saya no Nakayama on the road to the eastern provinces as a preface to lead by sound to nakanaka ni, "half-heartedly," the poet regrets having begun, for no good reason, to love the beloved. His regret at having started a love that goes unrewarded is expressed through the name of a steep mountain pass.
Ki no Tomonori was a poet of the early Heian period, the son of Ki no Aritomo and a cousin of Ki no Tsurayuki. He served as Senior Private Secretary and was appointed one of the compilers of the Kokinshū, but died before its completion. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

First line, "Azumaji no": Azumaji is the road from the capital to the eastern provinces, such as the Tōkaidō.
Second line, "Saya no Nakayama": a famous poetic place in Tōtōmi Province, a pass known as one of the difficult stretches of the Tōkaidō. Together with the first line it forms a preface, leading from the naka of Nakayama to nakanaka ni in the third line.
Third line, "nakanaka ni": half-heartedly, on the contrary; it conveys the feeling that it would have been better not to love at all.
Fourth line, "nani shika hito o": nani shika means why, and shi is an emphatic particle.
Fifth line, "omoisomekemu": somu means to begin to do, and kemu conjectures the cause of a past event, closing with regret for the past: "why did I begin to love?" Like "tanomisometeki" in 553 of this book, it uses somu to sing of love's beginning, but whereas that poem sings of beginning to rely on dreams, this one sings of regret at having begun to love.
Author: Ki no Tomonori
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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