Waga gotoku ware o omowamu hito mo gana sate mo ya uki to yo o kokoromimu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

我がごとく我を思はむ人もがな
さてもや憂きと世を試みむ

Roma-ji: Waga gotoku ware o omowamu hito mo gana sate mo ya uki to yo o kokoromimu
English Translation: Just as I love you,
if there were someone who would
love me in return,
would love still be so bitter?
That is the world I would test
Meaning: If only there were someone who loved me as I love another. Then I would test whether the bond between lovers is still so painful.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 750

Headnote: "Topic unknown."
Worn out by a love that goes only one way, the speaker wishes for someone who would love him just as much, to test whether love would still hurt. It is a reasoned poem that finds the source of love's pain in unequal feeling.
The author, "Ōshikōchi Mitsune," is Ōshikōchi no Mitsune, a minor official who served in provincial posts such as Provisional Junior Secretary of Kai, Provisional Senior Secretary of Tamba, Provisional Clerk of Izumi, and Provisional Clerk of Awaji, and who compiled the Kokinshū with Ki no Tsurayuki and others. He is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.

The first line, "as I do," sets the depth of his own love as the measure.
The second line repeats "me," reversing the roles of lover and beloved. The auxiliary mu is hypothetical.
The third line ends in the wish particle mogana, "if only there were," and the poem breaks here.
In the fourth line sate mo means "even so," ya asks a question, and uki is the pain of love.
In the last line yo means the relations of men and women, and kokoromimu expresses intent. Treating love's pain almost as an experiment shows Mitsune's intellectual turn.
Author: Oshikochi no Mitsune
Source: Kokin Wakashu
Prev Poem: Yoso ni nomi kikamashi mono o otowagawa wataru to nashi ni minaresomekemu
Next Poem: Hisakata no amatsu sora ni mo sumanaku ni hito wa yoso ni zo omou beranaru