Kaku bakari koishiki mono to shiramaseba yoso ni mirubeku arikeru mono o - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

かくばかり恋しきものと知らませば
よそに見るべくありけるものを

Roma-ji: Kaku bakari koishiki mono to shiramaseba yoso ni mirubeku arikeru mono o
English Translation: Had I only known
that love would be so bitter
and so full of longing,
from afar, a stranger, I
should have kept to watching you.
Meaning: Had I known that longing could be this painful, I should have stayed a stranger and only watched you from afar.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 874

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown"
The poem regrets: had I known love would be this painful, I should have kept to watching you from afar as a stranger. Having learned love's pain, it regrets having begun to love at all.
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 the Man'yōshū with the fourth line "tōku mirubeku."

First line, "kaku bakari," means "this much."
Second line, "koishiki mono to," means "that it is something to long for."
Third line, "shiramaseba," means "had I known," with "mase" the irrealis of the counterfactual auxiliary "mashi."
Fourth line, "yoso ni mirubeku," means "I should have watched from afar, as a stranger."
Final line, "arikeru mono o," means "so it should have been," with "mono o" an adversative exclamation. Answering "maseba" in the third line, it supposes the contrary of fact and expresses regret.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Shui Wakashu
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