Iro fukaku nioishi koto wa fujinami no tachi mo kaerade kimi tomare to ka - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

色深くにほひし事は藤浪の
たちもかへらで君とまれとか

Roma-ji: Iro fukaku nioishi koto wa fujinami no tachi mo kaerade kimi tomare to ka
English Translation: That they glowed so deep
in color, these wisteria waves,
is it to tell you
not to rise and go back home,
but stay with us, my lord?
Meaning: Could it be that the wisteria glowed so deeply in color to tell you not to rise and return like the waves, but to stay here with us?
Commentary: Book Three Spring Poems III 126

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Around the last ten days of the Third Month, when the Sanjō Minister of the Right had gone to the house of Lord Kanesuke, and by the garden stream where the wisteria was in bloom, various people were drinking wine."
As host, the poet detains his guest Sadakata, asking whether the wisteria glowed so deep in color to tell him to stay rather than go home. Overlaying the "rising and returning" of wisteria waves with a guest rising to leave, he expresses his hospitality.
The three poems from 125 to this one form a sequence exchanged at a wisteria banquet at Fujiwara no Kanesuke's house, in which guest, host and Tsurayuki each sang of the depth of the wisteria's color.
The poet, called "Lord Kanesuke," is Fujiwara no Kanesuke. A son of Fujiwara no Toshimoto, he rose to Middle Counselor. He was called the Tsutsumi Middle Counselor because his residence stood on the embankment of the Kamo River, and he was a patron of Ki no Tsurayuki, Ōshikōchi no Mitsune and others. He was the great-grandfather of Murasaki Shikibu and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

The first line, "Iro fukaku," takes up "iro no fukasa" of the preceding poem, 125.
In the second line, "niou" means to bloom in radiant color, and "shi" is the attributive of the past auxiliary "ki."
In the third line, "fujinami" likens the swaying wisteria clusters to waves, and through the association with waves leads into "tachi" and "kaera." 124 of this book also ends with "fujinami."
The fourth line, "tachi mo kaerade," is a pivot phrase joining waves "rising and returning" and a guest "rising to go home." "De" is a negative conjunctive: "without returning."
In the last line, "to ka" means "is it saying that…?" Like "kimi tomarikeri" in 105 of this book, it sings of someone staying beneath the flowers.
Author: Fujiwara no Kanesuke
Source: Gosen Wakashu
Prev Poem: Kagiri naki na ni ou fuji no hana nareba sokoi mo shiranu iro no fukasa ka
Next Poem: Sao sasedo fukasa mo shiranu fuchi nareba iro o ba hito mo shiraji to zo omou