Koto naraba koto no ha sae mo kienanamu mireba namida no taki masarikeri - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ことならば言の葉さへも消えななむ
見れば涙の滝まさりけり

Roma-ji: Koto naraba koto no ha sae mo kienanamu mireba namida no taki masarikeri
English Translation: If it must be so,
let his words of poetry
vanish with him too;
when I look on them, my tears
swell into a waterfall.
Meaning: If it must be so, I wish that even his words would vanish along with him. For when I look at them, the waterfall of my tears only grows.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Poems of Lament 854

Headnote: "When Prince Koretaka asked for the poems composed by my father while he lived, I wrote them out and sent them, and at the end I added this poem"
Prince Koretaka asked for the poems the poet's father had composed while alive; when he copied and sent them, he added this poem at the end. Because tears flow without end when he looks at his late father's poems, he says he would rather the words vanish together with his father. It expresses how the poems left as keepsakes only deepen his grief.
Prince Koretaka was the eldest son of Emperor Montoku and a close companion of Ariwara no Narihira and others.
The author, Ki no Tomonori, was a cousin of Ki no Tsurayuki and one of the compilers of the Kokinshū. He is one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry.

The first line, "if it must be so," means "if it is all the same" or "rather."
The second line, "even the words," refers to the poems his father left, with sae adding "the words too, as well as the man." The koto of the first line and the koto of "words" echo in sound.
The third line, "I wish they would vanish," uses na, from the perfective nu, and the wish particle namu. The poem breaks after the third line.
The fourth line, "when I look, the tears," refers to reading his father's poems.
The last line, "the waterfall swells," says the torrent of tears grows fiercer, pairing "vanish" and "waterfall" with the images of words and water.
Author: Ki no Tomonori
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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