Tarachime ya tomarite ware o oshimamashi kawaru ni kawaru inochi nariseba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

たらちめや止まりて我を惜しままし
代はるに代はる命なりせば

Roma-ji: Tarachime ya tomarite ware o oshimamashi kawaru ni kawaru inochi nariseba
English Translation: Would my mother then
have stayed in this world behind
to grieve over me,
if only a life could be
traded for a life?
Meaning: Would my mother have stayed on in this world to grieve for me, if only one life could be given in exchange for another?
Commentary: Book Nine Poems of Lament 602

Headnote: "Composed when my mother died"
Composed when the poet's mother died. Would my mother have stayed to grieve for me, he asks, if a life could be exchanged for a life? Through an impossible supposition he expresses his wish that, if it were possible, he could have died in her place and let her live. At the same time one senses the depth of the bond between mother and child, in that she would then have been the one to mourn him.
The author, "the Monk Kenshō," was a scholar of poetics of the Rokujō Fujiwara house, adopted by Fujiwara no Akisuke. He wrote works on poetics such as the Shūchūshō and debated with Shunzei and Teika of the Mikohidari house.
Poem 598 of this book also sings of parting from a mother by death, lamenting that both dying first and being left behind are sad; this poem says the poet wished he could have died first in his mother's place.

First line, "tarachime ya": "tarachime" means mother, and the interrogative "ya" closes with the attributive "mashi" in the third line.
Second line, "tomarite ware o": "my mother remaining in this world, and me."
Third line, "oshimamashi": the counterfactual "mashi," "would she have grieved for me?" The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "kawaru ni kawaru": "to take another's place," the verb repeated for emphasis.
Fifth line, "inochi nariseba": "se" is the irrealis of the past "ki," and with "ba" forms a hypothetical, "if it were a life." It is a counterfactual answering "mashi" in the third line, placed by inversion.
Author: Kenshō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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