来ずやあらん来やせんとのみ河岸の
まつの心を思ひやらなん
まつの心を思ひやらなん
- Roma-ji
-
Kozu ya aran ki ya sen to nomi kawagishi no matsu no kokoro o omoiyaranan
- English Translation
-
"Won't he come tonight?
Will he come?"—only this thought,
like the riverbank
pine that waits there, think of me,
and of a heart that waits so
- Meaning
- Will you not come, or will you come after all—that is all I think of. Please imagine the heart of one who waits like the pine on the riverbank.
- Commentary
-
Book Thirteen Love Poems V 938
Headnote: "Composed when a man wrote, 'How are you? I cannot come.'"
The poet asks the man to imagine the heart of one who waits like the pine on the riverbank, wondering only whether he will come or not. She entrusts to a pine standing on the riverbank a heart that goes on waiting in anxiety over whether he will come.
According to the headnote, the man wrote asking how she was and saying he could not come, and she answered with this. To a man who says he cannot come, she asks him to imagine the heart of the one who waits.
The poet is listed as anonymous, and the composer's name has not come down to us.
The first line, "Kozu ya aran," means "will he not come," with "ya" an interrogative binding particle. It is a hypermetric line of six syllables.
The second line, "ki ya sen to nomi," means "or will he come, only that," paired with the first line to show a wavering heart.
The third line, "kawagishi no," means "on the riverbank," leading to "matsu" in the fourth line.
The fourth line, "matsu no kokoro o," means "the heart that waits," with "matsu" joining the pine on the riverbank and "matsu," to wait.
The last line, "omoiyaranan," means "I wish you would imagine," with "nan," a form of "namu," a final particle of desire directed at another.
- Author
- Unknown Poet
- Source
- Gosen Wakashu
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Inase tomo iihanatarezu uki mono wa mi o kokoro tomo senu yo narikeri
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Shiite yuku koma no ashi oru hashi o dani nado waga yado ni watasazariken