Mata mo komu toki zo to omoedo tanomarenu waga mi ni shi areba oshiki haru kana - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

又も来む時ぞと思へど頼まれぬ
我が身にしあれば惜しき春かな

Roma-ji: Mata mo komu toki zo to omoedo tanomarenu waga mi ni shi areba oshiki haru kana
English Translation: Though I think that it
is a time that will come again,
I cannot rely
on this self I have become—
how I regret this passing spring
Meaning: I know the spring will come again, yet I cannot count on living to see it—and so how I regret this passing spring.
Commentary: Book Three Spring Poems III 146

Headnote: "On the last day of the Third Month, written at the end of a letter saying that he had not called for a long time. / Tsurayuki died in that same year."
Spring will surely come again, the poet thinks, but since he cannot count on living until then, this spring is all the more precious. The poem carries the urgent feeling of an aged man unsure whether he will greet another spring.
According to the headnote, he wrote this at the end of a letter on the last day of the Third Month, apologizing for not having visited for a long time. The appended note says that Tsurayuki died in that same year. His death is placed around the eighth year of Tengyō (945), and this is a work of his last years. From 141 to the closing poem of the book, 146, follows a sequence of poems regretting the last day of spring.
The poet, called "Tsurayuki," is Ki no Tsurayuki. A son of Ki no Mochiyuki, he was the leading compiler of the Kokin Wakashū and wrote its kana preface. He served as governor of Tosa among other posts, is known as the author of the Tosa Diary, and is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

In the first line, "mu" is conjectural: "spring will surely come again." Whereas the opening poem, 81, begins by lamenting how one's own self has changed, this closing poem also ends lamenting "waga mi ni shi areba," so the book begins and ends with poems lamenting one's own lot.
In the second line, "zo" is emphatic and "do" adversative: "though I think it is a time that will come again."
In the third line, "re" expresses possibility and "nu" is the attributive negative: "which cannot be relied on."
In the fourth line, "shi" is emphatic: "since such is my self." It answers "waga mi hitotsu no" in the opening poem, 81.
The last line, "oshiki haru kana," is the same as the last lines of 84 and 138 of this book. Placed at the end of the book, it closes its poems of regret for spring.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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