Miyakobito ikaga to towaba yama takami harenu kumoi ni wabu to kotae yo - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

都人いかがと問はば山高み
晴れぬ雲居にわぶと答へよ

Roma-ji: Miyakobito ikaga to towaba yama takami harenu kumoi ni wabu to kotae yo
English Translation: Should the capital folk
ask you how I fare these days,
say the peaks are high,
and in clouds that never clear
I pass my days in sorrow.
Meaning: If the people of the capital ask how I am, tell them that the mountains are so high that I live in gloom among clouds that never lift.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 937

Headnote: "Sent to someone who was going up to the capital while I was serving as Governor of Kai"
Serving as governor in the province of Kai, the poet entrusted this poem to someone heading up to the capital. It tells the messenger exactly what to answer if friends ask after him, conveying a gloomy life and heart in a mountainous province.
"Clouds that never clear" describe the real landscape of mountainous Kai and also stand for a heart that cannot brighten. Ariwara no Yukihira's poem 962 in this book ends with the same line, "say that I grieve," and shares the same pattern of one far from the capital entrusting an answer to its people.
The author, "Ono no Sadaki" as written in kana, is Ono no Sadaki, an official of the early Heian period who, according to the headnote, served as Governor of Kai. The Kokin Wakashū records that he exchanged poems with Ono no Komachi.

The first line, "the capital folk," refers to people living in the capital, whom the poet thinks of from a distant province.
The second line, "ask you how I fare," is a conditional: "if they should ask."
The third line, "the peaks are high," uses the pattern of noun plus adjective stem plus mi to give a reason: "because the mountains are high."
The fourth line, "in clouds that never clear," overlaps the clouds of the mountain province with a heart that does not brighten.
The last line, "say ... I pass my days in sorrow," ends in the imperative as a request to the messenger. It is the same closing line as 962 in this book.
Author: Ono no Sadaki
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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