Yamabiko mo kotaenu yama no yobukodori ware hitori nomi naki ya wataramu - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

山彦も答へぬ山の呼子鳥
我ひとりのみなきやわたらむ

Roma-ji: Yamabiko mo kotaenu yama no yobukodori ware hitori nomi naki ya wataramu
English Translation: Where not even echoes
answer back across the hills,
the calling bird cries;
must I, too, alone like that,
go on crying all my days?
Meaning: Like the calling bird in a mountain where not even an echo answers, must I go on crying all alone?
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 643

Headnote: "When a man had sent a letter to a woman and she gave no reply"
The poem asks whether the poet must go on crying alone, like the calling bird in a mountain where not even an echo answers. The headnote shows it was composed when a man had sent a letter to a woman and received no reply. Likening the woman who does not answer his call to a mountain that returns no echo, he overlays himself with the calling bird that keeps on calling. Like the plovers of 631, it ends "naki ya wataramu," entrusting weeping love to a bird, and together with the next poem, 644, two poems on echoes stand side by side.

First line, "yamabiko mo," means "not even the echo," the same word as the first line of the next poem, 644, "yamabiko wa."
Second line, "kotaenu yama no," means "of a mountain that does not answer," hinting at the woman who sends no reply.
Third line, "yobukodori," is a bird whose cry sounds like calling to someone, overlaid with the poet who keeps on calling.
Fourth line, "ware hitori nomi," means "I alone."
Final line, "naki ya wataramu," is a pivot word: "naki" means the bird "crying" and the poet "weeping." The binding particle "ya" is interrogative and resolved by the attributive "mu." It is the same form as the final line of 631, "koi ya wataramu."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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