Onozukara tsuraki kokoro mo kawaru ya to machimimu hodo no inochi tomogana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

おのづからつらき心も変はるやと
待ち見むほどの命ともがな

Roma-ji: Onozukara tsuraki kokoro mo kawaru ya to machimimu hodo no inochi tomogana
English Translation: In the course of time
her cold heart may change perhaps:
would I had a life
that might last until I saw it,
waiting through the years to come
Meaning: If only I could live long enough to wait and see whether, in time, her cold heart might change of its own accord.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 770

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a love poem"
Like the preceding poem, it is composed as a love poem. Would I had life enough, he says, to wait and see whether her cold heart may change of itself. Hoping that her heart, cold now, may someday change on its own, he wishes to live until that time, expressing the feeling that his life is near its end from the pain of love.
The author, "the monk Jōen," was a monk of the last years of the Heian period. His name also appears in Kamo no Chōmei's Mumyōshō.
Poem 731 of this book asks for words that would sustain life, and this poem asks for a life long enough to await a change of heart, so that the wish to keep life going for the sake of love is sung again and again.

First line, "onozukara": "of its own accord, naturally."
Second line, "tsuraki kokoro mo": "her cold heart, too."
Third line, "kawaru ya to": "ya" is interrogative, "whether it might change."
Fourth line, "machimimu hodo no": "long enough to wait and see."
Fifth line, "inochi tomogana": "mogana" is a final particle of wish, "would that I had such a life." Like "inochi to naramu" in the fourth line of 731 of this book, it sings of life sustained for love.
Author: Jōen
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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