Ima komu to iishi bakari o inochi nite matsu ni kenubeshi sakusame no toji - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

今来むと言ひしばかりを命にて
待つに消ぬべしさくさめの刀自

Roma-ji: Ima komu to iishi bakari o inochi nite matsu ni kenubeshi sakusame no toji
English Translation: "I will come right back"—
those words alone she lived on,
my daughter, and now
she will fade away in waiting,
the Lady of Sakusame
Meaning: Living on nothing but your words, "I will come right back," she seems about to fade away as she waits—the Lady of Sakusame.
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Poems IV 1259

Headnote: "A man's son-in-law said he would come again soon and left, but hearing that someone was sending letters to his wife, he stayed away a long time; so her mother, borrowing the manner of an adō-gatari tale, sent this, saying, 'This, I believe, is what she would say.'"
The poet says that, living on nothing but his words "I will come right back," the Lady of Sakusame seems about to fade away in waiting. A mother, speaking through the words of a told tale, appeals to the son-in-law who has stopped coming on behalf of her daughter who waits for him.
According to the headnote, the son-in-law left saying he would soon return, but hearing that someone was sending letters to his wife, stayed away for a long time; so her mother sent this, saying that, in the manner of an adō-gatari, this is what her daughter would say. Adō-gatari seems to have been a tale told by matching one's words to another's, but the details are unclear. The next poem is the son-in-law's reply, and the two form an exchange.
The poet is given as "the woman's mother," the daughter's mother, and her name is not known.

The first line, "Ima komu to," means "I will come right back," the words the son-in-law spoke on leaving. It shares its first line with the monk Sosei's poem in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, "Ima komu to iishi bakari ni nagatsuki no."
The second line, "iishi bakari o," means "only those words you spoke."
The third line, "inochi nite," means "as her lifeline."
The fourth line, "matsu ni kenubeshi," means "she will fade away in waiting," with "beshi" conjecture. The poem pauses here, inverted with the last line.
The last line, "sakusame no toji," is of uncertain meaning, but "toji" was a term for the mistress of a house or an older woman; borrowing the name of a woman in a told tale, it seems to refer to the waiting daughter. It ends on a noun.
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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