Shiru nareba ikani makura no omouran chiri nomi tsumoru toko no keshiki o - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

知るなれば如何に枕の思ふらん
塵のみ積もる床の気色を

Roma-ji: Shiru nareba ikani makura no omouran chiri nomi tsumoru toko no keshiki o
English Translation: Since it knows all things,
what must my pillow be thinking
as it looks upon
this bed, where nothing but the
dust is left to gather now?
Meaning: Since the pillow, they say, knows all, what must it be thinking as it looks upon my bed, where nothing but dust gathers now?
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 920

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed as a love poem when presenting a hundred-poem sequence"
A love poem from the same hundred-poem sequence as the two preceding poems. Since it knows, he says, what must the pillow think of this bed where only dust gathers? The pillow was said to know the secrets of those who sleep on it, and treating it as a person, he wonders what it feels as it looks on a bed where, his lover no longer visiting and no one sharing it, only dust piles up, expressing the loneliness of sleeping alone.
The author, "Former Imperial Adviser Chikataka," is Fujiwara no Chikataka. The son of Fujiwara no Tamefusa, he rose to Imperial Adviser and was one of the poets of the Kyūan sequences.
Poem 942 of this book, "shikishinobu toko dani taenu namida ni mo," also sings of a bed, but where this poem's bed is dry with gathered dust, 942 tells of a bed that cannot bear the tears, so that a dry bed and a wet one form a pair.

First line, "shiru nareba": "nare" is the perfective of the hearsay auxiliary "nari," and with "ba" it means "since it knows, they say." It draws on the saying that the pillow knows the secrets of love.
Second line, "ikani makura no": "how the pillow," treating the pillow as a person.
Third line, "omouran": "ran" is the present conjectural "ramu," "what must it think?" The poem pauses here and stands in inverted order with the lines that follow.
Fourth line, "chiri nomi tsumoru": "where only dust gathers" on a bed left unused with no one to share it, showing that the lover no longer comes.
Fifth line, "toko no keshiki o": "toko" is the bed, and "keshiki" its look or state. It shares "toko" with "toko dani taenu" in the second line of 942 of this book.
Author: Fujiwara no Chikataka
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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