Aimizu wa koishiki koto mo nakaramashi oto ni zo hito o kiku bekarikeru - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

逢ひ見ずは恋しきこともなからまし
音にぞ人を聞くべかりける

Roma-ji: Aimizu wa koishiki koto mo nakaramashi oto ni zo hito o kiku bekarikeru
English Translation: Had we never met,
I would not know such longing;
it would have been so—
only by rumor, I think,
should I have heard of you.
Meaning: Had we never met and loved, I would not know this longing. I should have known of you only through what others said.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 678

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The speaker laments that meeting the beloved has only deepened the longing, and regrets not having kept the relationship to mere rumor. Using the counterfactual "mashi," the poem reasons its way toward the peace that came before the meeting, a turn of thought typical of the Kokinshū.
Following the preceding poem, in which the speaker still longs while meeting the beloved, this poem treats the meeting itself as the cause of longing. The next poem, 679, takes up the same idea with "mizu wa koishi to omowamashi ya wa," and the two form a pair sharing the thought that without meeting there would have been no longing.

In the first line, "aimizu wa," "aimiru" means for lovers to meet and share the night, and "zu wa" sets a hypothesis: "had we not." It corresponds to "mizu wa koishi to" in the fourth line of the next poem.
The second line, "koishiki koto mo," means "the longing too," with the particle "mo" adding emphasis.
The third line, "nakaramashi," uses the counterfactual auxiliary "mashi": "there would have been none." The poem pauses here.
In the fourth line, "oto ni zo hito o," "oto" means rumor or report, and the particle "zo" forms a kakari-musubi with "keru" in the last line.
The final line, "kiku bekarikeru," means "I should only have heard of you," with the exclamatory "keri" in its attributive form "keru" completing the "zo" of the fourth line.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Michinoku no asaka no numa no hanakatsumi katsu miru hito ni koi ya wataramu
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