Omoiseku kokoro no uchi no shigarami mo taezu nariyuku namidagawa kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

思ひせく心の内のしがらみも
堪へずなりゆく涙川かな

Roma-ji: Omoiseku kokoro no uchi no shigarami mo taezu nariyuku namidagawa kana
English Translation: The weir within my heart
that has dammed my love so long
has begun at last
to give way before the rush
of this river of my tears
Meaning: Even the weir inside my heart that has held back my love can bear no longer the river of my tears.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 769

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a love poem"
Like the preceding poem, it is composed as a love poem. How the river of tears grows too strong, he says, even for the weir in my heart that dams my love. He has held back his love within his heart so that no one would know, but before the rush of his river of tears that weir too is giving way, expressing the limits of a hidden love.
The author, "Fujiwara no Chikamori," was an official and poet of the last years of the Heian period. Little is known of his career.
Poem 723 of this book says that for the rapids of the river of tears there is no weir but meeting, and sings like this poem of a river of tears and a weir. Where 723 takes meeting to be the weir that stops the tears, this poem says that even the weir within the heart cannot withstand them, so that the two form a pair through the same image.

First line, "omoiseku": "damming my love," leading into what follows.
Second line, "kokoro no uchi no": "within my heart."
Third line, "shigarami mo": "shigarami" is a weir of stakes woven with brushwood or bamboo to hold back a river, a figure for the heart restraining love. It uses the same word as "shigarami zo naki" in the last line of 723 of this book.
Fourth line, "taezu nariyuku": "growing unable to hold."
Fifth line, "namidagawa kana": "namidagawa" likens the flood of tears to a river, and "kana" is exclamatory. It is the same image as "namida no kawa no" in the second line of 723.
Author: Fujiwara no Chikamori
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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