Hitozute wa sashimo ya wa to mo omouramu misebaya kimi ni nareru sugata o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

人づてはさしもやはとも思ふらむ
見せばや君になれる姿を

Roma-ji: Hitozute wa sashimo ya wa to mo omouramu misebaya kimi ni nareru sugata o
English Translation: Hearing it through others,
"Can it be so bad?" you think,
I suppose, and so—
how I wish I could show you
what I have become for you
Meaning: Hearing it only from others, you must think, "Can it really be so bad?" How I wish I could show you what I have become because of you.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 861

Headnote: "Composed as a love poem when composing a hundred-poem sequence"
This poem was composed as a love poem for a hundred-poem sequence. Hearing it from others, he says, you must think "can it be so bad?"; how I wish to show you what I have become because of you. Though word reaches her secondhand that he is wasted away by love, she will surely not take it seriously, and so he wishes he could show her his appearance directly.
The author, "Kenshō Hōshi," was a poet-monk adopted by Fujiwara no Akisuke of the Rokujō Fujiwara house. Known as a learned scholar of poetry, he wrote treatises such as Shūchūshō.
Poems 871 and 886 in this book begin with "misebaya na" and, like "misebaya" in the fourth line here, sing of the wish to show the beloved the pain of love. Poem 878 also sings of how love changes one's "appearance."

First line, "hitozute wa": "if heard through others."
Second line, "sashimo ya wa to mo": "sashimo" means "so much as that," and "ya wa" is a rhetorical binding particle, expressing her doubt, "can it really be so bad?"
Third line, "omouramu": "ramu" is an auxiliary of present conjecture, "you must be thinking." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "misebaya kimi ni": "baya" is a particle of wish, "how I wish to show you." The poem breaks again here and stands in inverted order with the last line. Like "misebaya na" in the first lines of 871 and 886 in this book, it sings of the wish to show.
Fifth line, "nareru sugata o": "nareru" is the perfective of "naru," "to become," with the attributive of the continuative auxiliary "ri," "the appearance I have come to." It echoes "sugata no kawaru" in 878 in this book.
Author: Kenshō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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