Kaku bakari koimu to kanete shiramaseba imo o ba mizu zo arubeku arikeru

かくばかり恋ひむとかねて知らませば
妹をば見ずぞあるべくありける

Roma-ji: Kaku bakari koimu to kanete shiramaseba imo o ba mizu zo arubeku arikeru
English Translation: Had I only known
beforehand that I would
long for her like this,
I should never have seen her,
it would have been better so
Meaning: Had I known beforehand that I would long for her like this, it would have been better never to have met my wife at all.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Exchange Poems of Nakatomi no Yakamori and Sano no Otogami no Otome 3739

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems exchanged between Nakatomi no Ason Yakamori and Sano no Otogami no Otome"
He sings that had he known beforehand he would long for her so, it would have been better never to have met his wife. In the form of regretting their meeting, it paradoxically expresses the depth of love's pain. When one recalls that the cause of his exile lay in his marriage to the young woman, the regret takes on an even more complex resonance.
The author, Nakatomi no Yakamori, was a son of Nakatomi no Azumahito, from the Nakatomi clan in charge of the rites of the gods. He was exiled to Echizen Province for an offense, but was later pardoned and returned to the capital.
A left note reads "the above fourteen poems are by Nakatomi no Ason Yakamori"; the fourteen poems from 3731 to 3744 of this book were sent by Yakamori to the young woman from his place of exile. The latter half of this book contains sixty-three poems exchanged between Nakatomi no Yakamori and Sano no Otogami no Otome. According to the book's table of contents, when Yakamori took as his wife the young woman, a lady-in-waiting of the palace storehouse office, he was exiled to Echizen Province by imperial decree. The place of exile is thought to be Ajimano in Echizen, near present-day Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture.

First line, "kaku bakari": this much.
Second line, "koimu to kanete": "mu" is conjecture and "kanete" beforehand: that I would come to long for her, in advance.
Third line, "shiramaseba": "mase" is the irrealis of the counterfactual "mashi": had I known.
Fourth line, "imo o ba mizu zo": "miru" means to meet, and "zo" is a binding particle resolved by the attributive "keru": without meeting my wife.
Fifth line, "arubeku arikeru": "beku" expresses what ought to be: it would have been proper so, answering "zo" in the fourth line.
Author: Nakatomi no Yakamori
Source: Manyoshu
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