Uchi to naku nare mo shinamashi tamasudare tare toshitsuki o hedatesomeken - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

うちとなく慣れもしなまし玉簾
たれ年月を隔てそめけん

Roma-ji: Uchi to naku nare mo shinamashi tamasudare tare toshitsuki o hedatesomeken
English Translation: With no inside, no out,
we might have grown close, and yet
the jeweled blind let down—
who, I wonder, was the first
to set the years between us?
Meaning: We might have grown close, with no barrier between inside and out; who was it, letting down the jeweled blind, who first set these long years between us?
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 898

Headnote: "When Saneakira Ason came to visit after many years, she seated him beyond the blind and spoke with him; what happened then, one wonders"
The poem says: we might have grown close with no barrier between inside and out; who was it, letting down the jeweled blind, who first set these long years between us? Laying the long estrangement over the present scene of the two speaking through a blind, it questions the other about its cause.
According to the headnote, it was written when Minamoto no Saneakira came to visit after many years and she seated him beyond the blind to talk. "What happened then, one wonders" is a comment added by the compiler. The poem carries a heart mixing resentment and fondness at a long-awaited reunion.
The author, "Nakatsukasa," was the daughter of Prince Atsuyoshi, a son of Emperor Uda, and the poet Ise, a woman poet of the mid-Heian period. She is known for her exchanges of love poems with Minamoto no Saneakira and is one of the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.
The third line of the main text reads "tamasudare," which does not match "tamadare no" in the reading line; here the main text is followed.

First line, "uchi to naku," means "with no distinction between inside and out," carrying the sense of no blind separating them.
Second line, "nare mo shinamashi," means "we might have grown close," with "na" the irrealis of the perfective "nu" and "mashi" a counterfactual auxiliary. The poem breaks here.
Third line, "tamasudare," is a beautiful blind adorned with jewels, and since a blind is let down, "tareru," it leads to "tare."
Fourth line, "tare toshitsuki o," means "who, these years," with "tare" a pivot word joining letting down the blind and "tare," who.
Final line, "hedatesomeken," means "first set apart," with "ken" conjecturing a past cause. It lays the barrier of the blind over the barrier of the years.
Author: Nakatsukasa
Source: Shui Wakashu
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