Kouru ma ni toshi no kurenaba naki hito no wakare ya itodo tōku narinan - Shui Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

恋ふる間に年の暮れなば亡き人の
別れやいとど遠くなりなん

Roma-ji: Kouru ma ni toshi no kurenaba naki hito no wakare ya itodo tōku narinan
English Translation: While you go on longing,
if the year should end, will then
the parting from her,
the one who is gone, grow
farther away than before?
Meaning: If the year should end while you go on longing for her, will your parting from the one who is gone come to seem farther away than ever?
Commentary: Book Twenty Lament Poems 1309

Headnote: "When, in the twelfth month of the year the wife of Middle Counselor Kanesuke had died, Tsurayuki called on him and they talked"
The poet asks whether, if the year ends while one goes on longing, the parting from the dead will grow even more distant. The headnote shows it was composed when, in the twelfth month of the year that Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Kanesuke's wife died, the poet called on him and they talked. Once the year turns, the death will belong to last year and the parting will feel farther away, and so he imagines the heart of Kanesuke remembering the dead at the year's end. Fujiwara no Kanesuke, called the Tsutsumi Middle Counselor, was a patron of Tsurayuki and other poets.
The author, written as "Tsurayuki," is Ki no Tsurayuki, the leading compiler of the Kokinshū, who wrote its kana preface and the Tosa Diary. He is counted among the Thirty-Six Immortal Poets.

First line, "kouru ma ni," means "while you go on longing."
Second line, "toshi no kurenaba," means "if the year should end," with "na" the irrealis form of the perfective "nu" and "ba" supposition.
Third line, "naki hito no," means "of the one who is gone," Kanesuke's wife.
Fourth line, "wakare ya itodo," means "will the parting all the more," with the binding particle "ya" resolved by the attributive "nan" in the final line.
Final line, "tōku narinan," means "grow distant," with "na" perfective and "n" conjectural. It shares with the final line of 1287 in this book, "iya tōzakari," the sense of the dead receding with time.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Shui Wakashu
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