Koikoite nochi mo awamu to nagusamuru kokoro shi naku wa inochi arame ya - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

恋ひ恋ひて後も逢はむと慰むる
心しなくは命あらめや

Roma-ji: Koikoite nochi mo awamu to nagusamuru kokoro shi naku wa inochi arame ya
English Translation: Longing and longing,
I comfort my heart that later
we shall surely meet;
if I had not such a heart,
could I go on living still?
Meaning: Longing for you on and on, I console myself that we will meet later; without that hope in my heart, how could I go on living?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 873

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem says that if I did not have a heart that consoled itself, through all this longing, with the thought of meeting later, I could not go on living. It sings of the urgent feeling that amid the pain of not meeting, only the hope of a later meeting keeps one alive.
The author, "Hitomaro", is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, a court poet of the Asuka period revered as the sage of poetry and the foremost poet of the Man'yōshū, and one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets. Many Man'yōshū poems are included in the Shūishū under Hitomaro's name.
A similar poem appears in Book Twelve of the Man'yōshū with the final line "ikite arame ya mo."

First line, "koikoite," means "longing and longing," the repeated word expressing the length and depth of love.
Second line, "nochi mo awamu to," means "thinking I shall surely meet you later," with "mu" an auxiliary of intention. It shares words of trust in a later meeting with the fourth and final lines of 858 in this book, "arite no nochi mo awamu to zo omou."
Third line, "nagusamuru," means "consoling my own heart."
Fourth line, "kokoro shi naku wa," means "if that heart were not there," with "shi" an emphatic particle and "naku wa" a supposition.
Final line, "inochi arame ya," means "could I still be alive? I could not," with "me" the realis of the conjectural "mu" and "ya" rhetorical.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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