Nageki o ba kori nomi tsumite ashihiki no yama no kai naku narinu beranari - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

なげきをばこりのみ積みてあしひきの
山のかひなくなりぬべらなり

Roma-ji: Nageki o ba kori nomi tsumite ashihiki no yama no kai naku narinu beranari
English Translation: Piling up my sighs,
nothing but firewood I've cut,
in the mountains
the valleys fill, and my life,
it seems, will lose all purpose
Meaning: I only cut and pile up my sighs like firewood, until the mountain gorges seem filled in, and life itself seems about to lose all worth.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Miscellaneous Forms 1057

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The third poem in the sequence treating "nageki" as firewood, following the two before it. As piles of firewood might fill a mountain gorge, so accumulated sighs threaten to leave life without purpose. It closes on the pun of "kai," gorge and worth.
The author is unknown and is recorded as "Anonymous."

First line, "Nageki o ba," is a pivot word joining sighs and firewood, taking up the two preceding poems as the third of the sequence.
Second line, "kori nomi tsumite," means only cutting and piling up.
Third line, "ashihiki no," is a pillow word for "yama," mountain.
Fourth line, "yama no kai naku," is a pivot word joining "kai," a mountain gorge, and "kai," worth. Poem 1067 in this book uses the same pun in the opposite sense, "kai aru."
Fifth line, "narinu beranari," uses "beranari," a conjectural expression of the early Heian period: it seems likely to become so.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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