Nagaraeba tsuraki kokoro mo kawaru ya to sadame naki yo o tanomu bakari zo - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

永らへばつらき心も変はるやと
定めなき世を頼むばかりぞ

Roma-ji: Nagaraeba tsuraki kokoro mo kawaru ya to sadame naki yo o tanomu bakari zo
English Translation: If I live on long,
her cruel heart too may change,
so I tell myself,
and all I can rely upon
is a world that knows no constancy
Meaning: If I live long enough, perhaps even her cruel heart will change, and so all I can rely on is the very fickleness of this uncertain world.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 679

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
If I live on, her cruel heart may change, he says, and so I rely only on this inconstant world. Turning the impermanence of the world, usually a cause for lament, into a source of hope, he clings to the chance that her cold heart may one day change, a love twisted back upon itself.
The author, "Yorisuke, Minister of Justice," is Fujiwara no Yorisuke. The son of Major Counselor Fujiwara no Tadanori, he served as Minister of Justice and was known as a master of kemari, the courtly football game.
Poems singing of a cold lover also appear in "tsurenaki hito" in 653 and "tsure mo naki hito no kokoro" in 669 of this book.

First line, "nagaraeba": "nagarae" is the irrealis of "nagarau," "to live on," and with "ba" it makes a hypothesis.
Second line, "tsuraki kokoro mo": "even her cruel heart."
Third line, "kawaru ya to": "ya" is interrogative, "whether it may change."
Fourth line, "sadame naki yo o": "the inconstant world." It answers "kawaru," "change," in the third line, making impermanence itself a thing to rely on.
Fifth line, "tanomu bakari zo": the emphatic "zo," placed at the end, strengthens the statement, "all I can do is rely on it."
Author: Fujiwara no Yorisuke
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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