Ukimono no sasuga ni oshiki kotoshi kana tōzakarinan kimi ga wakare ni - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

憂きもののさすがに惜しき今年かな
遠ざかりなん君が別れに

Roma-ji: Ukimono no sasuga ni oshiki kotoshi kana tōzakarinan kimi ga wakare ni
English Translation: A year of sorrows,
and yet, I find, a year
I grieve to see go,
for our parting from you, my lord,
will grow ever more distant
Meaning: It has been a year of sorrow, yet still I am loath to see it end, for with it our parting from you who are gone will grow more distant.
Commentary: Book Nine Poems of Lament 562

Headnote: "Composed when, in the winter of the same year, after the lustration and the Great Thanksgiving Festival and the rest had passed, Major Counselor Nagaie came on the last day of the Twelfth Month to the First-Rank Princess, later Nijō-in"
In the winter of the same year in which Retired Emperor Go-Ichijō and Empress Ishi died, after the new emperor's lustration and Great Thanksgiving Festival had passed, Fujiwara no Nagaie visited Princess Shōshi, then called the First-Rank Princess and later Nijō-in, on the last day of the Twelfth Month, and this poem was composed then. It was a year of sorrow, yet still I regret its passing, the poet says, when I think of how our parting from you will grow distant. With the new year the parting from the late emperor and empress will recede by another year, so that even a sorrowful year is hard to let go, a paradoxical feeling.
The author, "Senji of the Former Empress," was a lady-in-waiting to Empress Ishi who was called Senji. Nothing more is known of her life.
It sings of an event of the same year as the preceding poem, 561, and the next poem, 563, is Nagaie's reply.

First line, "ukimono no": "no" is part of the concessive "monono," "though it was sorrowful."
Second line, "sasuga ni oshiki": "sasuga ni" means "all the same," "still."
Third line, "kotoshi kana": the exclamatory "kana," and the poem pauses here. It is the year in which the emperor and empress died.
Fourth line, "tōzakarinan": "na" is the irrealis of the intensive "nu" and "n" conjectural, "it will surely grow distant."
Fifth line, "kimi ga wakare ni": "kimi" refers to the late emperor and empress. By inversion it adds the reason for the upper verse afterward. The next poem, 563, answers with "wakarenishi kotoshi mo."
Author: Senji of the Former Empress
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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