Izuku tote tazunekitsuran tamakazura ware wa mukashi no ware nara naku ni - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いづくとて尋ね来つらん玉かづら
我は昔の我ならなくに

Roma-ji: Izuku tote tazunekitsuran tamakazura ware wa mukashi no ware nara naku ni
English Translation: To what place, thinking
to find me, have you come seeking,
O jeweled band—
I who am no longer
the self I was of old
Meaning: Where did you think you would find me, coming all this way, O jeweled band? I am no longer the man I once was.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems IV 1253

Headnote: "When he was serving at court as Middle Captain, he had left his quiver and his ceremonial cap-fans in the room of a palace lady he knew, but something sudden happened and he had to go to a distant place; she sent the cap-fans to him with words of sympathy, and this was his reply."
The poet asks where the jeweled band thought to find him, when he is no longer the man he was. Receiving in a far-off place the cap ornaments he once wore at court, he laments how utterly his circumstances have changed.
According to the headnote, while serving at court as a Middle Captain of the Palace Guards, he had left his quiver and cap-fans in the room of a palace lady he knew, but something sudden happened and he had to go to a distant place. She sent him the cap-fans with words of sympathy, and this was his reply. The "sudden happening" seems to refer to his being sent away from the capital in the downfall of Sugawara no Michizane.
The poet, Minamoto no Yoshi, is given in the text as "Lord Minamoto no Yoshi." An official of the early Heian period who served as Middle Captain of the Palace Guards, he is said to have been demoted to a provincial post as one implicated in the fall of Sugawara no Michizane.

The first line, "Izuku tote," means "thinking it to be where."
The second line, "tazunekitsuran," means "have you come seeking," with "ran" present conjecture. The poem pauses here.
The third line, "tamakazura," is an elegant name for a jeweled hair ornament, used here to address the cap-fans she sent.
The fourth line, "ware wa mukashi no," means "I, the one of old," repeating "ware" with the last line to set his past and present selves side by side.
The last line, "ware nara naku ni," means "I am no longer," with "naku ni" carrying a concessive sigh.
Author: Minamoto no Yoshi
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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