Kore mo mina sazo na mukashi no chigiri zo to omou mono kara asamashiki kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

これもみなさぞな昔の契りぞと
思ふものからあさましきかな

Roma-ji: Kore mo mina sazo na mukashi no chigiri zo to omou mono kara asamashiki kana
English Translation: This too, all of it,
must surely be the bond
of a former life,
so I think, and even so,
how wretched and dismaying
Meaning: All of this too, I tell myself, must surely be the bond of a former life; and yet, even thinking so, how wretched and dismaying it is.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 841

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
All this too, she says, I think must surely be the bond of a former life, and yet how dismaying it is. Even as she tries to accept, through the Buddhist idea of karma from a past life, the way her love has gone against her wishes, she cannot bring herself to settle the matter, and the poem conveys that lingering grief. It is an honest expression of the feelings of one troubled by love, whose heart cannot follow even when reason tries to give up.
The author, "Izumi Shikibu," was the daughter of Ōe no Masamune, Governor of Echizen. She became the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, and bore him Koshikibu no Naishi, and later had love affairs with Prince Tametaka and Prince Atsumichi. She served Jōtōmon'in Shōshi and is known for her passionate love poems.
Poem 902 in this book opens with a very similar phrase in its first two lines, "kore wa mina omoishi koto zo"; here "kore mo mina" lays her lot to the bond of a former life, there "kore wa mina" lays it to what she had long foreseen.

First line, "kore mo mina": "this too, all of it." Through "mo" it implies "this too, like my other sorrows." It corresponds with the similar phrase "kore wa mina" in the first line of 902 in this book.
Second line, "sazo na mukashi no": "sazo na" means "surely it must be so," and "mukashi" refers to a former life.
Third line, "chigiri zo to": "chigiri" is the karmic bond from a former life. "Zo" is an emphatic particle, here taken up by "to" to form a quotation.
Fourth line, "omou mono kara": "mono kara" is an adversative particle, "though I think so." It shows the gap between the mind that would accept it as karma and the heart that still cannot.
Fifth line, "asamashiki kana": "asamashi" means dismayed at the unexpected, wretched, and "kana" is an exclamatory particle.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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