Urameshi ya musubooretaru shitahimo no tokenu ya nani no kokoro naruran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

恨めしや結ぼほれたる下紐の
とけぬや何の心なるらん

Roma-ji: Urameshi ya musubooretaru shitahimo no tokenu ya nani no kokoro naruran
English Translation: How hateful it is!
This tangled and knotted
under-cord of yours,
won't it loosen? What sort of heart
is it, I wonder, keeps it so?
Meaning: How hateful! This under-cord so tightly knotted will not loosen, as your heart will not open; what kind of heart, I wonder, keeps it so?
Commentary: Book Thirteen Love Poems III 785

Headnote: "Written on the waistband of Ben no Menoto's divided skirt, which was showing, after drawing up the inkstone before Her Majesty, when I had called on the Empress Dowager at the Biwa Palace"
Written when, having called on the Empress Dowager at the Biwa Palace, he saw the waist cord of Ben no Menoto's divided skirt showing, drew up the inkstone before Her Majesty, and wrote on the waistband. How hateful, he says: what heart is it that keeps this tangled under-cord from coming untied? Drawing on the folk belief that an under-cord comes loose when someone loves you, it is a playful poem likening the cord that will not untie to a heart that will not open to him.
The author, "the Former Chancellor of Uji," is Fujiwara no Yorimichi. The eldest son of Fujiwara no Michinaga, he served as Regent and Chancellor and rose to Grand Chancellor. He was called the Lord of Uji after turning his villa at Uji into the Byōdōin. "The Empress Dowager of the Biwa Palace" in the headnote is his younger sister Fujiwara no Kenshi, consort of Emperor Sanjō.
This poem and the next, 786, form an exchange, each side pinning on the other the reason why the under-cord will not come untied.

First line, "urameshi ya": "ya" is an exclamatory particle, "how hateful!" The poem pauses here.
Second line, "musubooretaru": "musubooru" is for a cord to be knotted tight and tangled. The last line of the next poem takes up the same word.
Third line, "shitahimo no": "shitahimo" is the cord of an undergarment, here the waist cord of the divided skirt. It draws on the belief that an under-cord loosens of itself when someone loves you.
Fourth line, "tokenu ya nani no": "toke" pivots between a cord coming "untied" and a heart "opening" in intimacy. "Ya" is an interrogative particle that binds with "ran" in the last line.
Fifth line, "kokoro naruran": "ran" is the attributive of the present conjectural "ramu," concluding "ya," "what heart can it be?", questioning her heart.
Author: Fujiwara no Yorimichi
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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