Tsurenasa ni iwade taenan to omou koso aiminu saki no wakare narikere - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

つれなさに言はで絶えなんと思ふこそ
逢ひ見ぬ先の別れなりけれ

Roma-ji: Tsurenasa ni iwade taenan to omou koso aiminu saki no wakare narikere
English Translation: When, because she's cold,
I resolve to end it all
and never say a word,
that, I find, is the parting
that comes before we ever meet
Meaning: When her coldness makes me resolve to let it end without ever speaking, that, I realize, is a parting that comes before we have even met.
Commentary: Book Eleven Love Poems I 698

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a love poem"
A love poem under the same headnote as the preceding poem. To think, because of her coldness, of letting it end unspoken, he says, is the parting before we have ever met. The moment he decides to withdraw without confessing to one so cold is itself a parting before a single meeting, and with this paradox he voices the sadness of a love that ends before it has even begun.
The author, "Sueyoshi, Master of the Capital Office of the Right," is Fujiwara no Sueyoshi. The son of Fujiwara no Toshimori, he served as Master of the Capital Office of the Right.
Poem 701 of this book sings of "aimite nochi no tsurasa," "the pain after meeting," pairing with this poem's "aiminu saki no wakare," "the parting before meeting," as before and after a meeting.

First line, "tsurenasa ni": "because of her coldness."
Second line, "iwade taenan to": a line with an extra syllable. "Nan" is the irrealis of the perfective "nu" with the volitional "mu," "to let it end without speaking."
Third line, "omou koso": the emphatic "koso" closes with the perfective "kere" in the last line.
Fourth line, "aiminu saki no": "before we have ever met." It pairs with "aimite nochi no" in the fourth line of 701.
Fifth line, "wakare narikere": "kere," the perfective of "keri" expressing realization, closes the "koso" of the third line, "that is a parting."
Author: Fujiwara no Sueyoshi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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