Taezu yuku asuka no kawa no yodominaba kokoro aru to ya hito no omowamu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

絶えずゆく飛鳥の川のよどみなば
心あるとや人の思はむ

Roma-ji: Taezu yuku asuka no kawa no yodominaba kokoro aru to ya hito no omowamu
English Translation: If the Asuka,
ever flowing without end,
should come to a stop,
would people think, I wonder,
that it had some other heart?
Meaning: If the ever-flowing Asuka River were to come to a standstill, would people suspect some hidden reason? Should my visits falter, would you think my heart had turned elsewhere?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 720

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
Just as people would wonder if the ever-flowing Asuka River came to a standstill, the speaker worries that if his visits, so constant until now, were to falter, his lover would think he had found someone else. The poem overlays the image of a river flowing on with the lover's visits that have continued unchanged.
The author is given in the original as "anonymous," but one account names "Nakatomi no Azumahito," and a left note says, "Someone says this poem is by Nakatomi no Azumahito." Nakatomi no Azumahito is taken to be an official of the Nara period, but his connection to this poem is unclear.
The next poem, 721, pairs with it by likewise singing of a river's stillness, "Yodogawa no yodomu," and it also answers "Asukagawa" in 687 of this book through the image of the river.

The first line, "taezu yuku," means "flowing ceaselessly," standing for visits that have continued without a break.
The second line, "Asuka no kawa no," is the Asuka River in Yamato, a famed poetic place known for its shifting course.
The third line, "yodominaba," means "if it should stagnate," the irrealis of the perfective "nu" with "ba" giving a hypothesis, standing for visits that falter.
The fourth line, "kokoro aru to ya," means "that there is some reason, some other love," with the particle "ya" forming a kakari-musubi with "mu" in the last line.
The final line, "hito no omowamu," means "would she think?", closing with the attributive form of the conjectural "mu" in answer to the "ya" of the fourth line.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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