Nagaraete kawaru kokoro o miru yori mo au ni inochi o kaetemashikaba - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

長らへて変はる心を見るよりも
逢ふに命を替へてましかば

Roma-ji: Nagaraete kawaru kokoro o miru yori mo au ni inochi o kaetemashikaba
English Translation: Rather than live on
to see your heart change, as it has,
to watch it alter,
would that for that one meeting
I had traded away my life
Meaning: Rather than living on to see your heart change toward me, would that I had traded my life for that one meeting.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 881

Headnote: "Composed on the topic 'love that met and then met no more' when I had others compose hundred-poem sequences"
This poem was composed on the topic "love that met and then met no more" when he had others compose hundred-poem sequences. Rather than living on to see your heart change, he says, would that I had traded my life for our meeting. Having met once, he laments that her heart has since changed, and expresses fierce regret that, if this was to be, he should have given his life in exchange at the moment they met. It is a poem in which her "kawaru," "changing," and his "kau," "exchanging" his life, echo each other.
The author, "Regent, former Minister of the Right," was Kujō Kanezane. The son of Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi, he founded the Kujō house. After serving as Minister of the Right, he became Regent and Chancellor, and left the diary Gyokuyō.
Poem 874 in this book says "nagarae yukedo wasurezarikeri," that even living on one cannot forget the tryst, while this poem instead shuns living on. Poem 891 also sings of the beloved's heart "changing."

First line, "nagaraete": "living on." It echoes "nagarae yukedo" in the fourth line of 874 in this book.
Second line, "kawaru kokoro o": "your heart that has changed." Like "kore mo kokoro no" and what follows in the fourth line of 891 in this book, it sings of a heart that changes.
Third line, "miru yori mo": "yori" is a particle of comparison, "rather than seeing."
Fourth line, "au ni inochi o": "my life for meeting," that is, my life in exchange for meeting.
Fifth line, "kaetemashikaba": "kau," "to exchange," echoes "kawaru" in the second line. "Te" is the continuative of the completive "tsu" and "mashikaba" a counterfactual condition, "had I exchanged it." Breaking off before the unspoken "it would have been better," it leaves an afterglow of regret.
Author: Kujō Kanezane
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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