Nakanaka ni mizu aramashi o aimite yu kohoshiki kokoro mashite omōyu

なかなかに見ずあらましを相見てゆ
恋ほしき心まして思ほゆ

Roma-ji: Nakanaka ni mizu aramashi o aimite yu kohoshiki kokoro mashite omōyu
English Translation: Better far it were
had I never looked on you;
since we met, my love,
this heart that yearns for you
feels it all the more by far
Meaning: It would have been better never to have seen you at all; since we met, my yearning heart feels it ever more deeply.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems Ancient and Modern I 2392

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Expressing One's Feelings Directly"
Better never to have met, for since meeting, the longing has only grown: the poem tells how meeting deepened the pain of love instead of easing it. That it dwells not on the joy of meeting but on the suffering that meeting brought gives it the ring of real experience as a love poem.
Following the preceding poem, which sang of longing on the morning after meeting the evening before, this poem too speaks of feelings that grow after meeting, so the same theme continues. The next poem also imagines another course of events through the counterfactual, "had I not gone ... I would not have met," echoing this poem's "better not to have seen."
The author is unknown; according to the left note, the poem comes from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection. That collection is thought to contain both Hitomaro's own poems and poems by others that he recorded. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jito and Emperor Monmu, and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "nakanaka ni": "rather, all the more." It states at the outset the feeling that meeting has in fact become the source of suffering.
Second line, "mizu aramashi o": "would that I had not seen you." The counterfactual auxiliary "mashi" with the concessive "o" expresses vain regret. The poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, "aimite yu": "since we met." "Yu" is an ancient particle marking a starting point, referring to everything after the moment of meeting.
Fourth line, "kohoshiki kokoro": "a yearning heart." "Kohoshi" is an older form of "koishi," to long for.
Fifth line, "mashite omōyu": "I feel it all the more." "Omōyu" means to find oneself thinking without willing it, closing the poem on an irrepressible, growing love.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection
Source: Manyoshu
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