Omoiidete koishiki toki wa hatsukari no nakite wataru to hito shirurame ya - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひ出でて恋しき時は初雁の
なきて渡ると人知るらめや

Roma-ji: Omoiidete koishiki toki wa hatsukari no nakite wataru to hito shirurame ya
English Translation: When I think of you,
at the times I long for you,
like the first wild geese
I go crying on my way—
would you know it, I wonder?
Meaning: When I remember you and long for you, I wander past your house weeping, like the first wild geese crying as they cross the sky—do you know it at all?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 735

Headnote: "Having secretly come to know a woman but finding it hard to meet her, he was walking near her house when he heard the wild geese cry, and composed and sent this poem"
Having come to know a woman in secret but finding it hard to meet her, he was walking near her house when he heard wild geese cry, and composed and sent this poem. As the first wild geese cry while crossing the sky, he too wanders weeping around her house—does she know it? he asks.
Following the poems of longing for old love, it entrusts a heart weeping for one it cannot meet to the cry of the first wild geese, an image of autumn.
The author, "Ōtomo Kuronushi," is Ōtomo no Kuronushi. Said to have been a man of Shiga District in Ōmi, he is counted among the Six Poetic Immortals.

The first line, "omoiidete," means "remembering you."
The second line, "koishiki toki wa," means "at times when I long for you."
The third line, "hatsukari no," refers to the first wild geese to arrive in autumn and leads to "nakite wataru" in the fourth line.
In the fourth line, "nakite wataru to," "naki" is a pivot word joining the geese's crying and the speaker's weeping, while "wataru" overlays the geese crossing the sky with his going back and forth near her house.
The final line, "hito shirurame ya," means "does she know? Surely not," closing with the rhetorical "ya."
Author: Ōtomo no Kuronushi
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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