Aware to shi omowamu hito wa wakareji o kokoro wa mi yori hoka no mono ka wa - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あはれとし思はむ人は別れじを
心は身よりほかのものかは

Roma-ji: Aware to shi omowamu hito wa wakareji o kokoro wa mi yori hoka no mono ka wa
English Translation: If you truly held me
as someone dear to your heart,
you would never part:
is the heart a thing apart
from the body that it dwells in?
Meaning: If you truly held me dear, you would not part from me. Is the heart something apart from the body? Surely not.
Commentary: Book Seven Parting Poems 489

Headnote: "Sent in reply when a man who had gone down to Tsukushi, setting out for the capital, wrote to a woman from the place of his departure that he had no heart to go up to the capital"
Sent by a woman in reply when a man who had gone down to Tsukushi, about to go up to the capital, wrote to her from the place of his departure that he had no heart for the journey. If you truly held me dear, you would not part from me, she says; is the heart something apart from the body? To the man who claims his heart will stay with her while his body goes up to the capital, she retorts that if the body leaves, the heart has left too, reproaching the emptiness of his words.
The author, "Anonymous," indicates that the poet's name has not come down to us.
Following 485 and 486, it is another parting from someone going up from Tsukushi to the capital.

First line, "aware to shi": "aware" means "dear," and "shi" is emphatic.
Second line, "omowamu hito wa": "mu" is euphemistic, "anyone who would think of me as dear."
Third line, "wakareji o": "ji" is the negative conjectural and "o" adversative, "would not part, and yet." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "kokoro wa mi yori": "the heart, from the body," answering the man's words that he has no heart to go, that is, his claim that his heart will remain. Poem 492 of this book sings of leaving the heart behind at home when setting out, putting into a poem the very idea of separating heart and body that this poem rejects.
Fifth line, "hoka no mono ka wa": the rhetorical "ka wa," "is the heart something other than the body? It is not."
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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