Kimi o nomi omoi koshiji no shirayama wa itsuka wa yuki no kiyuru toki aru - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

君をのみ思ひこしぢの白山は
いつかは雪の消ゆる時ある

Roma-ji: Kimi o nomi omoi koshiji no shirayama wa itsuka wa yuki no kiyuru toki aru
English Translation: Thinking but of you,
I came by the Koshi road,
and on Shirayama
when is it that the snow
ever has a time to melt?
Meaning: I came along the Koshi road thinking only of you, and on Shirayama there, when does the snow ever melt away? Never.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems II 979

Headnote: "Reply"
This is Muneoka no Ōyori's reply to Ōshikōchi no Mitsune's poem 978. Teased for likening his feelings to snow, he retorts that the snow on Shirayama in Koshi never melts, and neither will his feelings.
Shirayama was known as a mountain capped with snow all year round, and the wit of the reply lies in countering Mitsune's "after spring it will be gone" with a mountain whose snow never disappears. The next poem, 980, also sings of Shirayama in Koshi.
The author is Muneoka no Ōyori, an official of the early Heian period. The headnote shows that he had been posted to Koshi, but his career is not known in detail.

The first line, "thinking but of you," states the constancy of his feelings.
The second line, "I came by the Koshi road," contains a pivot word: omoikoshi, "came thinking," and Koshiji, "the Koshi road."
The third line, "on Shirayama," refers to Mount Haku in Kaga, sung of as capped with snow all year.
The fourth line, "when is it that the snow," uses the rhetorical ka wa, answered by the attributive aru at the end.
The last line, "ever has a time to melt?", means that it never melts.
Author: Muneoka no Ōyori
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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