Isonokami furu no nakamichi nakanaka ni mizu wa koishi to omowamashi ya wa - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

石上布留の中道なかなかに
見ずは恋しと思はましやは

Roma-ji: Isonokami furu no nakamichi nakanaka ni mizu wa koishi to omowamashi ya wa
English Translation: Isonokami—
on the middle road of Furu,
half-hearted meetings:
had I never seen you, would
I have longed for you like this?
Meaning: Like the middle road of Furu in Isonokami, these half-measures undo me: had I never seen you at all, would I have yearned for you so? Surely not.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 679

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poem declares forcefully, through a rhetorical question, that it is precisely because the lovers met, half-heartedly, that the speaker now suffers from longing. The first two lines are a preface that repeats the sound "naka" of "nakamichi" to lead into "nakanaka ni," and the old Yamato place names give the poem its pleasing rhythm.
The poem answers the preceding poem's "aimizu wa koishiki koto mo nakaramashi" with the same idea, cast as a rhetorical question, "mizu wa koishi to omowamashi ya wa," so that the two are set side by side as a pair.
The author, "Tsurayuki," is Ki no Tsurayuki. The son of Ki no Mochiyuki, he was one of the compilers of the Kokinshū and wrote its Japanese preface; after serving as governor of Tosa he wrote the Tosa Diary.

The first line, "Isonokami," is a place name in Yamato and serves as a pillow word for Furu, which lies in the same area.
The second line, "furu no nakamichi," refers to the road running through Furu (near present-day Tenri in Nara), and through the sound "naka" it forms a preface to "nakanaka ni" in the third line.
The third line, "nakanaka ni," means "half-heartedly" or "all the more," expressing the feeling that meeting has only become a source of pain.
In the fourth line, "mizu wa koishi to," "mizu wa" is a hypothesis, "had I not seen you," and it answers "aimizu wa" in the first line of the preceding poem.
The final line, "omowamashi ya wa," joins the counterfactual "mashi" to the rhetorical "ya wa": "would I have thought so? Surely not."
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Aimizu wa koishiki koto mo nakaramashi oto ni zo hito o kiku bekarikeru
Next Poem: Kimi tēba mimare mizumare fuji no ne no mezurashige naku moyuru waga koi