Kaku nomi ni arikeru mono o Inagawa no oki o fukamete waga moerikeru

かくのみにありけるものを猪名川の
沖を深めて我が思へりける

Roma-ji: Kaku nomi ni arikeru mono o Inagawa no oki o fukamete waga moerikeru
English Translation: Though all along
it was to come to only this,
like the Ina River,
deep out where the waters run,
so deeply I loved you still.
Meaning: Though it was to come to no more than this, I went on loving you as deeply as the depths of the Ina River.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Poems with Tales of Origin and Miscellaneous Poems 3804

Headnote: "Long ago a young man had newly married. Before long he was sent as a post-courier to a distant frontier. Public duty has its limits, but there was no day fixed for their meeting. The wife, overcome with grief, fell ill and took to her bed. Years later the man returned and made his report. When he went to see her, she was worn and wasted beyond recognition and could barely speak through her sobs. The man, grieving and weeping, made a poem and recited it. The poem:"
The husband laments that though their bond proved so fragile, he had loved her as deeply as the deep waters of the Ina River. Faced with his wife wasted by illness after their long separation, he feels the weight of the years apart.
According to the headnote, a man sent away as a courier soon after marrying returned years later to find his wife so worn with grief that she could barely speak. The next poem, 3805, is her reply from her sickbed.
The poet is the young man of the tale; his name is not recorded.

First line, "kaku nomi ni," means "only this much," lamenting how fragile their bond turned out to be.
Second line, "arikeru mono o," means "though it was so." The concessive exclamation mono o conveys a feeling that cannot be undone.
Third line, "Inagawa no," names the Ina River in Settsu. It acts as a preface leading into "oki o fukamete" in the fourth line.
Fourth line, "oki o fukamete," means "deepening like the depths offshore," laying the depth of the river over the depth of his heart.
Final line, "waga moerikeru," means "so I had loved." Read in contracted form, it ends with the attributive of the exclamatory keri, leaving a lingering echo.
Source: Manyoshu
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