Uguisu no naku naru koe wa mukashi nite waga mi hitotsu no arazu mo aru kana - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

鴬の鳴くなる声は昔にて
我が身一つのあらずもあるかな

Roma-ji: Uguisu no naku naru koe wa mukashi nite waga mi hitotsu no arazu mo aru kana
English Translation: The warbler's song,
the voice I hear, is the same
as it was long ago;
it is only I myself
who am not as I once was
Meaning: The warbler's voice I seem to hear is just as it was long ago; it is only I who am no longer what I once was.
Commentary: Book Three Spring Poems III 81

Headnote: "After she and the Posthumous Chancellor had parted, on hearing his voice at a certain place, she sent this."
The warbler's voice has not changed since the old days, yet she alone is not as she was. Setting the unchanging voice against her own altered circumstances, the poem conveys the loneliness that followed their parting.
According to the headnote, after parting from the Posthumous Chancellor, she heard his voice at a certain place and sent this poem. The Posthumous Chancellor is Fujiwara no Tokihira, who was granted the title of Chancellor after his death, and the poet had been his wife. The warbler's voice can be read as a figure for the voice of Tokihira, once her companion.
The poet, "the mother of Lord Fujiwara no Akitada," was Akitada's mother. She was a wife of Fujiwara no Tokihira, and her name has not come down to us. Her son Akitada was Tokihira's second son and later rose to Minister of the Right.
Whereas Ariwara no Narihira's poem in the Kokin Wakashū says that, though moon and spring are not as they were, he alone remains his former self, this poem says that she alone is not as she was, reversing the conceit.

The first line, "Uguisu no," names the bird that heralds spring, likening it to the voice of the one she parted from. The book opens with the warbler, which also appears in 101 and 131 of this book. The closing poem of the book, 146, likewise ends lamenting "waga mi ni shi areba," so the book begins and ends with poems lamenting one's own lot.
In the second line, "naru" is an inference from sound: "the voice that seems to be singing."
The third line, "mukashi nite," means "as it was long ago," showing that the voice has not changed. "Hana no iro wa mukashi nagara ni" in 102 of this book likewise sets what is unchanged against what has changed.
The fourth line, "waga mi hitotsu no," means "I alone," setting her changed self against the unchanged voice.
The last line, "arazu mo aru kana," means "how I am no longer as I was," and "kana" expresses a sigh.
Author: Mother of Fujiwara no Akitada
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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