Tanomekoshi koto no ha ima wa kaeshitemu waga mi furureba okidokoro nashi - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

頼めこし言の葉今は返してむ
我が身ふるれば置き所なし

Roma-ji: Tanomekoshi koto no ha ima wa kaeshitemu waga mi furureba okidokoro nashi
English Translation: The leaves of your words
that once gave me hope, I now
will return to you;
since I have grown old and stale,
there's no place to keep them now.
Meaning: I return to you now the words that once led me to trust you; I have grown old and stale in your eyes, and there is no longer any place to keep them.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 736

Headnote: "When the Minister of the Right had stopped visiting her, she gathered together the letters he had sent her in the past and returned them, composing and sending this poem with them"
She composed this poem when returning, bundled together, the letters once sent to her by the Minister of the Right, who had stopped visiting her. Even the words that led her to trust him have no place to rest with one grown old and disregarded, she says, quietly conveying the sorrow and resentment of parting.
The "Minister of the Right" of the headnote is Minamoto no Yoshiari, the Chikanoin Minister of the Right and author of the next poem, 737, which is his reply; the two form an exchange over the returning of "koto no ha" (words). "Koto no ha" is also sung in 688 and 712 of this book, and the doubt about unchanging words appears here as the concrete scene of parting in which letters are returned.
The author, "Naishi-no-suke Fujiwara no Yoruka no Ason," is Fujiwara no Yoruka. The daughter of Fujiwara no Takafuji, posthumously named Grand Minister, and the nun Keishin, she served as a lady of the Palace Attendants' Office before becoming its deputy director.

The first line, "tanomekoshi," means "which have made me trust," the lower bigrade verb "tanomu" with "ku" (come) and "shi," the attributive form of the past "ki."
The second line, "koto no ha ima wa," means "the words of your letters, now," likening words to leaves.
The third line, "kaeshitemu," means "I will give them back," the irrealis of the intensive "tsu" with the volitional "mu"; the poem pauses here.
The fourth line, "waga mi furureba," means "since I have grown old," showing a self no longer regarded by him as the years pass.
The final line, "okidokoro nashi," means "there is no place to keep them," "oki" (place, set down) being an associated word of "koto no ha," overlaying the lack of a place for the letters with her own lack of a place in the world.
Author: Fujiwara no Yoruka
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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