Koeyarade koiji ni mayou Ōsaka ya yo o idehatenu seki to naruran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

越えやらで恋路に迷ふ逢坂や
世を出で果てぬ関となるらん

Roma-ji: Koeyarade koiji ni mayou Ōsaka ya yo o idehatenu seki to naruran
English Translation: Unable to cross,
lost along the road of love,
is the Meeting Slope
to become the barrier
that keeps me from leaving the world?
Meaning: Unable to cross it, wandering lost on the road of love, will the Barrier of Ōsaka, the Slope of Meeting, become the very gate that keeps me from leaving this world behind?
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 752

Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'Love as a hindrance to the life to come'"
Composed on the topic "Love as a hindrance to the life to come," that is, love standing in the way of rebirth in paradise. Will Ōsaka, which I cannot cross as I wander on the road of love, become the barrier that keeps me from leaving the world, he asks. Being unable to pass the Barrier of Ōsaka, whose name holds "au," "to meet," and so straying on the road of love, becomes the very barrier that keeps him from renouncing the world for the Buddhist path, expressing the conflict between love and renunciation.
The author, "Fujiwara no Iemoto," was an official and poet of the last years of the Heian period. Little is known of his career.
"Koiji," the road of love, is also sung of in 727 of this book, sharing the likening of love to a road.

First line, "koeyarade": "yaru" means to carry an action through and "de" is a negative conjunctive particle, "unable to cross over."
Second line, "koiji ni mayou": "koiji" likens love to a road. It uses the same word as "koiji wa tōki" in the second line of 727 of this book.
Third line, "Ōsaka ya": Ōsaka is the barrier on the border of Yamashiro and Ōmi, whose name contains "au," "to meet." "Ya" is an interrogative particle binding with "ran" in the last line.
Fourth line, "yo o idehatenu": "yo o izu" is to renounce the world and take the tonsure, and "hatenu" means "unable to carry through."
Fifth line, "seki to naruran": "seki" is a barrier blocking passage, a related word to "Ōsaka" in the third line. "Ran" is the attributive of the conjectural "ramu," concluding the "ya" of the third line, "will it become a barrier?"
Author: Fujiwara no Iemoto
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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