Ika bakari koiji wa tōki mono nareba toshi wa yukedomo au yo nakaran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いかばかり恋路は遠きものなれば
年は行けども逢ふ夜なからん

Roma-ji: Ika bakari koiji wa tōki mono nareba toshi wa yukedomo au yo nakaran
English Translation: How far, I wonder,
can the road of love extend,
that though year on year
goes by along it, there should
be no night for us to meet?
Meaning: How far must the road of love stretch, that though the years go by along it, there is never a night when we may meet?
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 727

Headnote: "Composed as a love poem when hundred-poem sequences were presented"
Composed as a love poem when hundred-poem sequences were presented; the sequences are the Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequences presented to Retired Emperor Sutoku. How far must the road of love be, he asks, that though the years go by there is no night to meet? Likening love to a road, he laments that while the years pass he never reaches the meeting that should lie at the road's end.
The author, "Former Consultant Norinaga," is Fujiwara no Norinaga. The son of Major Counselor Fujiwara no Tadanori, he rose to Consultant. A close retainer of Retired Emperor Sutoku, he was exiled after the Hōgen Disturbance. He was also known as a calligrapher and was one of the poets of the Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequences.
Poem 721 of this book opens with the same first line, "ika bakari." "Koiji," the road of love, also appears in 752.

First line, "ika bakari": "how far." Poem 721 of this book opens with the same line.
Second line, "koiji wa tōki": "koiji" likens love to a road and relates to "yuke," "to go," in the fourth line. It uses the same word as "koiji ni mayou" in the second line of 752 of this book.
Third line, "mono nareba": "since it is such," giving the cause for "ran" in the last line.
Fourth line, "toshi wa yukedomo": "yuke" is the years going by, echoing travel along a road through "ji" in the second line.
Fifth line, "au yo nakaran": "ran" is the auxiliary of conjecture on causes, "why should there be no night to meet?"
Author: Fujiwara no Norinaga
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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