Hakanaku mo hito ni kokoro o tsukusu kana mi no tame ni koso omoisomeshika - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

はかなくも人に心を尽くすかな
身のためにこそ思ひ初めしか

Roma-ji: Hakanaku mo hito ni kokoro o tsukusu kana mi no tame ni koso omoisomeshika
English Translation: How futile it is,
the heart I spend upon her!
For my own sake, surely,
for my own happiness alone,
did I first begin to love
Meaning: How futile, how I wear my heart out for her! And yet it was for my own sake, surely, that I first began to love.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 705

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
How futile, he says, that I spend my heart on her, when it was for my own sake that I first began to love. A love begun in search of one's own happiness has turned, before one knows it, into wearing the heart out for another, and the poem gazes at this paradox of love.
The author, "the Hanazono Minister of the Left," is Minamoto no Arihito. A grandson of Emperor Go-Sanjō and son of Prince Sukehito, he was given the Minamoto surname as a commoner and rose to Minister of the Left. He excelled in poetry and music.
The last line, "omoisomeshika," shares the word "some," "to begin," with "koisomeshi" in the first line of the next poem, 706, so that two poems looking back on the start of love stand side by side.

First line, "hakanaku mo": "how futile," setting the keynote of lament.
Second line, "hito ni kokoro o": "my heart, toward her."
Third line, "tsukusu kana": "kana" is an exclamatory particle, "how I spend my heart!" The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "mi no tame ni koso": "koso" is an emphatic particle that binds with "shika" in the last line, "for my own sake, surely."
Fifth line, "omoisomeshika": "shika" is the perfective form of the past auxiliary "ki," concluding the "koso" of the fourth line, with an adversative undertone, "did I begin to love, and yet." Like "koisomeshi" in the first line of the next poem, it sings of love's beginning.
Author: Minamoto no Arihito
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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