Tsukikage ni waga mi o kauru mono naraba tsurenaki hito mo aware to ya mimu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

月影にわが身をかふるものならば
つれなき人もあはれとや見む

Roma-ji: Tsukikage ni waga mi o kauru mono naraba tsurenaki hito mo aware to ya mimu
English Translation: If I could transform
myself into the moonlight,
would even the one
who is so cold to me then
gaze on me with tender heart?
Meaning: If only I could turn myself into moonlight, would even the one who is so cold to me then look on me with tender feeling?
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 602

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet wonders whether, if he could turn himself into moonlight, even the cold beloved would gaze on him tenderly, as one gazes at the moon. In the fancy of likening himself to the moonlight that people gaze at with feeling lies an earnest wish to turn the beloved's heart toward him even a little. Following the previous poem, the same poet again sings of a "cold" beloved.
Mibu no Tadamine was a poet of the early Heian period and the father of Mibu no Tadami. Although a low-ranking official, he was chosen as one of the compilers of the Kokinshū. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

First line, "tsukikage ni": tsukikage is moonlight, taken up as something people gaze at with deep feeling.
Second line, "waga mi o kauru": kau means to change or exchange, "to change myself into moonlight."
Third line, "mono naraba": a hypothetical condition, "if it were possible."
Fourth line, "tsurenaki hito mo": the cold beloved. Taking up "tsurenaki kimi ga kokoro" in the previous poem, 601, it names the beloved with the same word. Mo carries the sense of "even that cold one."
Fifth line, "aware to ya mimu": aware is a feeling of deep, tender affection. Ya is an interrogative binding particle resolved by the attributive mimu. The poem closes by asking whether the beloved would look on him as one looks at the moon.
Author: Mibu no Tadamine
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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