Oinu tote nado ka waga mi o semekikemu oizu wa kyō ni awamashi mono ka - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

老いぬとてなどか我が身を責めきけむ
老いずは今日に会はましものか

Roma-ji: Oinu tote nado ka waga mi o semekikemu oizu wa kyō ni awamashi mono ka
English Translation: Grown old, I said,
and why was it I reproached
myself for age?
Had I not grown old, would I
have lived to meet this day?
Meaning: Why did I blame myself for having grown old? Had I not lived to old age, could I have met this day?
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems I 903

Headnote: "Offered in the same reign, when wine was bestowed on the men in the courtiers' hall and there was a grand musical entertainment"
In the reign of Emperor Uda, when wine was bestowed on the men in the courtiers' hall and music was performed, the poet offered this. He had lamented his age, but it was because he lived long that he could meet this splendid banquet, and so he affirms old age and praises the emperor's grace.
The author, "Toshiyuki no Ason," is Fujiwara no Toshiyuki, son of Fujiwara no Fujimaro, who rose to Captain of the Right Military Guards. He was known as a fine calligrapher and is one of the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals.
The long group on old age in this book closes with this poem turning age into joy.

First line "oinu tote" means "saying I have grown old." It echoes the opening of poem 900 in this book, "oinureba," beginning from old age.
Second line "nado ka waga mi o": nado ka asks "why" with a note of reflection, forming a kakari-musubi with kemu in the third line.
Third line "semekikemu" closes with the attributive of the past-conjecture kemu, looking back: why did I blame myself? The poem pauses here.
Fourth line "oizu wa kyō ni" is a condition, "had I not grown old," emphasizing today's banquet.
Fifth line "awamashi mono ka" joins the counterfactual mashi and the rhetorical mono ka: could I have met it? No, I could not.
Author: Fujiwara no Toshiyuki
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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