Mada shiranu hito mo arikeru azumaji ni ware mo yukite zo sumu bekarikeru - Gosen Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

まだ知らぬ人も有りける東路に
我も行きてぞ住むべかりける

Roma-ji: Mada shiranu hito mo arikeru azumaji ni ware mo yukite zo sumu bekarikeru
English Translation: In the eastern lands
there are those who do not know
of him yet, it seems—
I should have gone there myself
and made that place my home
Meaning: In the eastern lands there are still those who have not heard of my son's death—I should have gone there myself to live.
Commentary: Book Twenty Congratulatory Poems 1386

Headnote: "When someone in the East, not yet having heard that Atsutoshi had died, sent a horse."
The poet says that he should have gone to live in the eastern lands, where there are people who do not yet know. A horse arriving from the East from someone unaware of his son's death makes him envy a distant land where one need not know such grief, voicing the deep sorrow of a parent who has lost his child.
According to the headnote, it was composed when someone in the East, not yet having heard of the death of his son Atsutoshi, sent a horse. Fujiwara no Atsutoshi was the poet's eldest son and died young. Poems of mourning begin with this poem, for Book Twenty of the Gosen Wakashu contains both congratulatory poems and poems of mourning. The text of the second line reads "hito mo arikeru," which does not agree with the reading line, "hito mo arikeri." The text's wording is followed here.
The poet, "the Minister of the Left," is Fujiwara no Saneyori. The eldest son of Fujiwara no Tadahira, he rose through Minister of the Left to Chancellor and Grand Minister, and was posthumously named Seishinkō.

The first line, "Mada shiranu," means "not yet knowing" of his son's death.
The second line, "hito mo arikeru," means "where there are such people," with the attributive "keru" modifying "the eastern road" of the third line.
The third line, "azumaji ni," means "in the eastern lands," where the sender of the horse lives.
The fourth line, "ware mo yukite zo," means "I too should have gone," with "zo" an emphatic binding particle.
The last line, "sumu bekarikeru," means "and lived there," closing the "zo" with the attributive "keru." The same "keru" is repeated in the second and last lines.
Author: Fujiwara no Saneyori
Source: Gosen Wakashu
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