Au koto no kakute ya tsui ni yami no yo no omoi mo idenu hito no tame ni wa - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

逢ふ事のかくてやつひにやみの夜の
思ひも出でぬ人のためには

Roma-ji: Au koto no kakute ya tsui ni yami no yo no omoi mo idenu hito no tame ni wa
English Translation: Shall our meetings end
like this at last, as the sun
fades into dark night,
for one who never even thinks
of me, nor calls me to mind?
Meaning: Will our meetings cease like this at last and turn to the dark of night, for one who does not even call me to mind?
Commentary: Book Nineteen Miscellaneous Love Poems 1255

Headnote: "Sent from the Grand Empress Dowager to the First-Rank Princess at the time of a solar eclipse"
The poet asks whether their meetings will cease like this at last and turn to the dark of night, for one who does not even call her to mind. The headnote shows it was sent from the Grand Empress Dowager to the First-Rank Princess at the time of a solar eclipse. Speaking through the eclipse, when the sun is eaten away and darkness falls, and pivoting on "yami," ceasing and darkness, she conveys reproach and loneliness toward one she has long not met, who does not even remember her.
There is no settled view as to whom the author's title, "Grand Empress Dowager," refers. It is the honorific for the grand empress dowager, an empress holding the rank of the emperor's grandmother. Who is meant by the First-Rank Princess in the headnote is likewise unclear.

First line, "au koto no," means "our meetings."
Second line, "kakute ya tsui ni," means "like this, at last," with the binding particle "ya" expressing a question.
Third line, "yami no yo no," is a pivot word: "yami" means meetings "ceasing" and the "darkness" of the eclipse. It comes to mean "like a dark night."
Fourth line, "omoi mo idenu," means "who does not even call me to mind," laying the darkness of a sun that does not come out in the eclipse over the other not remembering her.
Final line, "hito no tame ni wa," means "for that one," the one who has forgotten her, giving in inverted order the reason for the lament of the first three lines.
Author: Grand Empress Dowager
Source: Shui Wakashu
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