Sakidatanu kui no yachitabi kanashiki wa nagaruru mizu no kaerikonu nari - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

先立たぬ悔いの八千度悲しきは
流るる水の帰り来ぬなり

Roma-ji: Sakidatanu kui no yachitabi kanashiki wa nagaruru mizu no kaerikonu nari
English Translation: Regret comes too late,
and eight thousand times over
this sorrow returns,
for like the water that has flowed
the one who is gone will not return.
Meaning: Regret never comes beforehand, and it grieves us a thousand times over, for, like water that has flowed away, the one who is gone never returns.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Poems of Lament 837

Headnote: "Composed to send as condolence when someone Fujiwara no Tadafusa had known long ago passed away"
This poem was sent as a condolence when someone Fujiwara no Tadafusa had once been close to died. Regret for what one should have done never comes in time, and the reason it grieves one again and again is that the departed, like flowing water, never returns. It stays close to Tadafusa's grief while lamenting a death that cannot be undone.
Fujiwara no Tadafusa, named in the headnote, was an official of the early Heian period known both as a poet and as a musician.
The author was a person called Kan'in, thought to be a woman, but nothing more is known of her.

The first line, "that never comes first," draws on the proverb "regret never comes beforehand."
The second line, "regret eight thousand times," uses yachitabi to mean countless times.
The third line, "what is sad," poses the reason as a question and leads to its answer.
The fourth line, "of flowing water," likens the departed to water that has flowed away. Following 829 and 836 in this book, parting by death is again entrusted to the waters of a river.
The last line, "is that it never returns," gives the reason and closes with the copula nari.
Author: Kan'in
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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