Nado waga mi shitaba momiji to narinikemu onaji nageki no eda ni koso are - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

などわが身下葉紅葉となりにけん
同じなげきの枝にこそあれ

Roma-ji: Nado waga mi shitaba momiji to narinikemu onaji nageki no eda ni koso are
English Translation: Why is it that I
have become a lower leaf
that turns red and fades—
when we both hang on one branch,
the branch of the same sorrow
Meaning: Why have I become like a lower leaf that reddens and fades, when we both hang on the same branch of sorrow?
Commentary: Book Seven Autumn Poems III 429

Headnote: "Taking a letter that Lord Kanesuke had secretly been sending to the late Prince's Naishi, she wrote this on it and sent it to the Naishi."
The poet asks why she alone has become like a lower leaf that reddens and fades, when they hang on the same branch of grief. Though both grieve over the same man, she laments through the lower leaves that she alone is no longer cared for.
According to the headnote, she obtained a letter Fujiwara no Kanesuke had secretly been sending to the Naishi of the late Prince, wrote this on it, and sent it to the Naishi. It appears to be a woman connected with Kanesuke pleading her own grief to the Naishi, who had given her heart to the same man.
The poet is listed as "anonymous," and the composer's name has not come down to us. The text gives the poet as "yomibito mo," which is treated here as "anonymous."

The first line, "Nado waga mi," means "why have I."
The second line, "shitaba momiji to," means "like the lower leaves turned red," since the lower leaves color and fall first, likening herself to one no longer cared for.
In the third line, "kemu" is an auxiliary conjecturing a past cause: "why have I become so?" The poem pauses here.
In the fourth line, "nageki" is a pivot word meaning both "grief" and "nage-ki," firewood, and its "ki," wood, is an associated word with "eda," branch, in the last line.
The last line, "eda ni koso are," means "though we are on the same branch," with "koso" and the realis "are" forming a kakarimusubi pattern with an adversative sense.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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