Ato mo naki Katsuragiyama o fumimireba waga watashikoshi katahashi kamoshi - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

跡もなき葛城山をふみ見れば
我が渡し来しかたはしかもし

Roma-ji: Ato mo naki Katsuragiyama o fumimireba waga watashikoshi katahashi kamoshi
English Translation: Treading Katsuragi,
where not a single trace remains,
I look at the letter:
the bridge I've laid across to you,
is this its broken end alone?
Meaning: Treading Mount Katsuragi, where no trace remains, I look at the letter: is this the broken half of the bridge I have kept laying, the torn end of what I sent?
Commentary: Book Eighteen Miscellaneous Congratulatory Poems 1199

Headnote: "When the woman tore off the edge of a letter he had sent her and gave no reply"
The poet asks whether, treading traceless Mount Katsuragi and looking at the torn letter, what he has laid across is only half a bridge. The headnote shows it was composed when the woman tore off the edge of the letter he had sent her and gave no answer. Drawing on the legend of the stone bridge that the god of Katsuragi tried to build but never finished, and pivoting on "fumi," treading and a letter, and "katahashi," half a bridge and a torn end, it likens a one-sided love cut short to an unfinished bridge.
The final line is difficult and its reading is not settled, but it is understood as "katahashi kamo" with an emphatic "shi" added.

First line, "ato mo naki," means "without a trace," speaking of a steep mountain where no one has passed, and also echoing the trace of handwriting. It shares the word "ato" with the third line of the next poem, 1200, "ato naredo."
Second line, "Katsuragiyama o," means "Mount Katsuragi," on the border of Yamato and Kawachi, the site of the legend of the stone bridge. It shares the legend of Katsuragi's stone bridge with the final line of 1201 in this book, "Katsuragi no kami."
Third line, "fumimireba," is a pivot word: "fumi" means "treading" the mountain and a "letter." It layers treading and looking with looking at the letter.
Fourth line, "waga watashikoshi," means "that I have laid across," layering the laying of a bridge with the handing over of letters.
Final line, "katahashi kamoshi," is a pivot word: "katahashi" means a "half-built bridge" and the "torn end" of the letter. "Kamo" expresses question and exclamation.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Shui Wakashu
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