Todomete mo nani ni ka wa sen hamachidori furinuru ato wa nami ni kietsutsu - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

とどめても何にかはせん浜千鳥
古りぬる跡は波に消えつつ

Roma-ji: Todomete mo nani ni ka wa sen hamachidori furinuru ato wa nami ni kietsutsu
English Translation: Though I wrote it down,
what good would it come to be?
Like the plovers' shore,
the old tracks left there will vanish
again and again in the waves.
Meaning: What use would it be to write it down? Like the plovers' tracks on the shore, old marks are washed away by the waves, time and again.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems II 554

Headnote: "In reply"
The poet replies that there is no point in writing anything down, for like old plover tracks washed away by the waves, writing too disappears. Teased in the preceding poem, 553, about the blank booklet, he turns the same image of plovers on the shore back, saying that since marks left behind will fade anyway, there is no need to write. It is a witty answer for a child.
The author, Sanesuke, Major Captain of the Right, is Fujiwara no Sanesuke. A son of Fujiwara no Tadatoshi, he was adopted by his grandfather Saneyori. He rose to Minister of the Right and left the diary Shōyūki.

First line, "todomete mo," means "even if I wrote it down," taking up the preceding poem's "ato no naki kana," 553.
Second line, "nani ni ka wa sen," means "what good would it be? none at all," with "ka wa" rhetorical. The poem breaks after this second line.
Third line, "hamachidori," means "plovers on the shore," answering with the same word as the third line of the preceding poem, 553.
Fourth line, "furinuru ato wa," means "the tracks grown old," with "nuru" the attributive form of the perfective auxiliary "nu." It takes up "ato" of the preceding poem.
Final line, "nami ni kietsutsu," means "vanish in the waves," with "tsutsu" expressing repetition and the line trailing off with feeling. It shares the image of waves with the first line of 552, two poems earlier, "shiranami no."
Author: Fujiwara no Sanesuke
Source: Shui Wakashu
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