Nushi ya tare toedo shiratama iwanaku ni saraba nabete ya aware to omowamu - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

主や誰問へどしらたま言はなくに
さらばなべてやあはれと思はむ

Roma-ji: Nushi ya tare toedo shiratama iwanaku ni saraba nabete ya aware to omowamu
English Translation: Whose could it be?
I ask, but the white jewel
says it does not know—
then shall I hold every one
of them dear within my heart?
Meaning: I ask whose it is, but the white jewel, as if it did not know, gives no answer. Then shall I feel tenderly toward all the dancers alike?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 873

Headnote: "Composed on the morning after the Gosechi, on seeing a jewel fallen from a hairpin and asking whose it might be"
On the morning after the Gosechi dances, the poet found a jewel fallen from a dancer's hairpin and asked whose it was. Since the jewel does not name its owner, he playfully resolves to cherish all the dancers.
The author, "the Minister of the Left of Kawara," is Minamoto no Tōru, a son of Emperor Saga who was given the Minamoto surname and rose to Minister of the Left. He built the Kawara-in on the Rokujō riverbank, modeled on Shiogama in Michinoku, and so was called the Kawara Minister of the Left.
Following the preceding poem, 872, this also concerns the Gosechi: a poem regretting the dancers' departure and a poem on the lingering traces after the dance stand side by side.

First line "nushi ya tare" asks with the particle ya who the jewel's owner is.
Second line "toedo shiratama": shiratama is a pivot word joining "not knowing" and "white jewel"; though asked, the jewel does not answer, as if it did not know.
Third line "iwanaku ni" is the nominalized negative naku with ni, "since it does not say," and the poem pauses here.
Fourth line "saraba nabete ya": nabete means all alike, pointing to all the dancers; ya forms a kakari-musubi with mu in the last line.
Fifth line "aware to omowamu" closes with the attributive of the volitional mu. It echoes "aware to zo miru" in poem 867 of this book, in the heart that cherishes all for the sake of one connection.
Author: Minamoto no Tōru
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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