Yama yori mo fukaki tokoro o tazune miba waga kokoro ni zo hito wa iru beki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

山よりも深き所を尋ね見ば
我が心にぞ人は入るべき

Roma-ji: Yama yori mo fukaki tokoro o tazune miba waga kokoro ni zo hito wa iru beki
English Translation: If you would go seek
a place deeper than any
mountain, then it is
into my heart, none other,
that you ought to find your way
Meaning: If you would seek a place deeper even than the mountains, then it is into my heart that you ought to come.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 912

Headnote: "Sent when a woman said that she wished to go deep into the mountains"
This poem was sent when a woman said she wished to go deep into the mountains. If you would seek a place deeper than the mountains, he says, it is into my heart that you should enter. To go deep into the mountains means to renounce the world as a nun, or to hide away from the eyes of others. To a woman who, weary of the world, says she wants to enter the mountains, he pleads that his love is deeper than any mountain, a witty poem urging her to come to him rather than to the hills.
The author, "Major Counselor Tadanobu," is Fujiwara no Tadanobu. The son of Chancellor Fujiwara no Tamemitsu, he rose to Major Counselor. With Fujiwara no Kintō, Minamoto no Toshikata and Fujiwara no Yukinari he was counted among the Four Counselors of Emperor Ichijō's reign, and he excelled in poetry and music.
Poem 941 of this book, "okuyama no iwakakinuma no," likewise sets the depth of the mountains against the depth of love.

First line, "yama yori mo": "yori" is a particle of comparison, "than the mountains." It takes up "deep mountains" in the woman's words in the headnote.
Second line, "fukaki tokoro o": "a place deeper still than the mountains," leading to the depth of the heart. It shares "fukaki" with "fukaki koiji ni" in the fourth line of 941 of this book.
Third line, "tazune miba": "if you would seek it out," the irrealis with "ba" giving a hypothetical condition.
Fourth line, "waga kokoro ni zo": the emphatic "zo" closes with the attributive "beki" in the last line, "into my heart, not the mountains."
Fifth line, "hito wa iru beki": "hito" refers to the woman. "Iru," "to enter," turns from entering the mountains to entering his heart, and "beki," the attributive of "beshi" expressing what ought to be, closes the "zo" of the fourth line.
Author: Fujiwara no Tadanobu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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