Yoso ni te wa nakanaka sate mo arinishi o utate mono omou kinō kyō kana - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

よそにては中々さてもありにしを
うたて物思ふ昨日今日かな

Roma-ji: Yoso ni te wa nakanaka sate mo arinishi o utate mono omou kinō kyō kana
English Translation: While you were far off,
I could, strangely, even so
go on as I was;
yet how I brood, all the more,
these days, yesterday, today
Meaning: While you were far away, I could, strangely enough, go on as I was; yet now, yesterday and today, how the longing torments me all the more.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 842

Headnote: "Sent when he heard that a woman he had once known had moved to a place nearby"
This poem was sent when he heard that a woman with whom he had once been intimate had moved close by. While you were far away, he says, I could, strangely, go on as I was, yet yesterday and today, since I learned you are near, I brood all the more. The meetings are no more possible than before, yet knowing she is near only stirs his longing and leaves him restless, and the poem catches this curious working of the heart in love.
The author, "Retired Emperor Kazan," was the sixty-fifth sovereign, Emperor Kazan. The eldest son of Emperor Reizei, he took the tonsure after only two years on the throne. After his abdication he devoted himself to poetry and is said to have had a hand in the making of the Shūi Wakashū.

First line, "yoso ni te wa": "yoso" is a place apart from oneself, "while you were far away."
Second line, "nakanaka sate mo": "nakanaka" means "on the contrary, rather," and "sate mo" means "even so, just as it was."
Third line, "arinishi o": "ni" is the continuative of the completive auxiliary "nu," "shi" the attributive of the past auxiliary "ki," and "o" an adversative particle, "though I had been able to go on."
Fourth line, "utate mono omou": "utate" means "all the more, distressingly," a word lamenting how longing grows.
Fifth line, "kinō kyō kana": "yesterday and today," the days since he heard she had come near, and "kana" is exclamatory. The poem closes by contrasting the past when she was far away with the present when she is near.
Author: Retired Emperor Kazan
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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