Ima koso are ware mo mukashi wa otokoyama sakayuku toki mo arikoshi mono o - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

今こそあれ我も昔はをとこ山
さかゆく時もありこしものを

Roma-ji: Ima koso are ware mo mukashi wa otokoyama sakayuku toki mo arikoshi mono o
English Translation: As I am now—
but I too, long ago,
was a man, Otokoyama,
climbing the slopes of glory,
there once was such a time.
Meaning: Look at me now—but I too, long ago, was in my manly prime, and like one climbing the slopes of Mount Otoko, I had my time of rising glory.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 889

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The speaker, now old, recalls that he too once had a time of manly vigor. Overlaying the youthful energy of his past on the image of climbing the slope of Mount Otoko, he voices the lament of age in a somewhat playful tone. The author is unknown.
In this book, poems lamenting and accepting old age continue at length from this poem through 903.

First line "ima koso are" closes koso with the perfective are and continues adversatively, "now it is so, but"; the line is hypermetric.
Second line "ware mo mukashi wa" contrasts the present self with the past self. It takes up "sakari wa arishi mono nari" of the preceding poem, 888, and applies it to the speaker.
Third line "otokoyama" is a pivot word joining Mount Otoko in Yamashiro, site of the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine, and "a man in his prime."
Fourth line "sakayuku toki mo" is a pivot word joining "climbing the slope" and "flourishing."
Fifth line "arikoshi mono o" joins the attributive shi of the past ki and the adversative mono o, lamenting the days gone: "there was such a time, yet."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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