Hito watasu koto dani naki o nani shi ka mo nagara no hashi to mi no narinuran - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

人渡すことだになきを何しかも
ながらの橋と身のなりぬらん

Roma-ji: Hito watasu koto dani naki o nani shi ka mo nagara no hashi to mi no narinuran
English Translation: Though it never bears
a soul across to anywhere,
why is it, I wonder,
my self has come to be
the Nagara Bridge, so old
Meaning: Though I carry no one across, why is it that I have come to be like the old Bridge of Nagara?
Commentary: Book Fifteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1117

Headnote: "Around the time the Cloistered Emperor took the tonsure."
The poet asks why, though she carries no one across, she has come to be like the Bridge of Nagara. In the Nagara Bridge, known for its age, she sees herself, left behind by the Cloistered Emperor's renunciation and passing the years in vain. Like the Kokinshu poem "Yo no naka ni furinuru mono wa tsu no kuni no nagara no hashi to ware to narikeri," it treats the Nagara Bridge as the very image of old age.
According to the headnote, it was composed around the time Cloistered Emperor Uda took the tonsure. Ise's reply follows in the next poem, answering the exchange between the Shichijō Empress and Ise in 1097 and 1098 of this book.
The poet, "the Shichijō Empress," is Fujiwara no Onshi. A daughter of Fujiwara no Mototsune, she became a consort of Emperor Uda and was later honored as Empress Dowager. She was so called because she lived at the Shichijō palace, and the poet Ise served her.

The first line, "Hito watasu," means "carrying people across," in keeping with a bridge, meaning to be of use to others.
The second line, "koto dani naki o," means "though I do not even do that," with "o" adversative.
The third line, "nani shi ka mo," means "why is it," with "shi" emphatic and "ka" an interrogative binding particle closed by the attributive "ran" in the last line.
The fourth line, "nagara no hashi to," means "the Nagara Bridge" in Settsu, known as an aged bridge. "Nagara no hashi" also appears in the fourth line of the next poem.
The last line, "mi no narinuran," means "have I become," with "ran" conjecture about a cause, closing the "ka" of the third line.
Author: Fujiwara no Onshi
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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