Nagekitsutsu kawasanu yowa no tsumoru ni wa makura mo utoku naranu mono ka wa - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

嘆きつつ交はさぬ夜半の積もるには
枕も疎くならぬものかは

Roma-ji: Nagekitsutsu kawasanu yowa no tsumoru ni wa makura mo utoku naranu mono ka wa
English Translation: While I grieve, the nights
when we never share a pillow,
as they pile up so,
how could even the pillow
not grow distant from me?
Meaning: As the nights pile up when, grieving, we never share a pillow, how could even a pillow not grow distant? It surely will.
Commentary: Book Fourteen Love Poems IV 901

Headnote: "Reply"
This is the woman's reply to the preceding poem, 900. As the nights pile up when, grieving, we do not share a pillow, she says, how could even the pillow not grow distant? To the preceding poem's wish that at least the pillow grow used to her bed, she turns it back: if the nights without sharing a bed pile up, even a pillow, far from growing familiar, will become estranged, hinting with resentment that his heart, too, which does not come to meet her, may grow distant.
The author is given as "anonymous."
It forms an exchange with the preceding poem, 900. It uses "kawasanu yowa no" from the fourth line of the preceding poem just as it is in its second line, and answers the preceding poem's "tokonare yo" with "utoku."

First line, "nagekitsutsu": "tsutsu" is a particle of continuation, "while grieving." It corresponds with "wabitsutsu wa" in the first line of the preceding poem.
Second line, "kawasanu yowa no": "of the late nights we do not share." It takes up exactly the same line as the fourth line of the preceding poem, 900.
Third line, "tsumoru ni wa": "as they pile up," showing that night after night passes without their sleeping together.
Fourth line, "makura mo utoku": "utoshi" means unfamiliar, distant, and contrasts with "tokonare yo" in the third line of the preceding poem. "Mo" adds "even the pillow."
Fifth line, "naranu mono ka wa": "ka wa" is a rhetorical particle, "how could it not become so? it surely will." Through the pillow, it closes by hinting that his heart too may grow distant.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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