Nageku ma ni kagami no kage mo otoroenu chigirishi koto no kawaru nomi ka wa - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

嘆く間に鏡の影も衰へぬ
契りしことの変はるのみかは

Roma-ji: Nageku ma ni kagami no kage mo otoroenu chigirishi koto no kawaru nomi ka wa
English Translation: While I have grieved, see,
even the face in my mirror
has withered away;
is it only the pledge we made
that has altered, then? Not so
Meaning: While I lay grieving, even my reflection in the mirror has withered; is it only the promise we made that has changed? No, I have changed as well.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 938

Headnote: "Composed by His Majesty as a love poem when he called for hundred-poem sequences"
Composed by the emperor himself as a love poem when he called for hundred-poem sequences. While I grieved, he says, even my face in the mirror has faded; is it only our pledge that has changed? As he spends his days lamenting that his lover has broken her word and changed her heart, even his own face in the mirror has withered, and overlaying two changes, the change of heart and the decline of his looks, the poem conveys the long months of grief. The sequence is the Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequences.
The author, "His Majesty Retired Emperor Sutoku," was the seventy-fifth sovereign, Emperor Sutoku. The first son of Emperor Toba, his mother was Taikenmon'in Tamako. He loved poetry, called for the Kyūan Hundred-Poem Sequences and commanded the compilation of the Shika Wakashū. Defeated in the Hōgen Disturbance, he was exiled to Sanuki and died there. A poem of his is included in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
From this poem to 944 come poems from the same Kyūan sequences. Following 926 and 927, this poem too sings of a change of heart with the word "kawaru."

First line, "nageku ma ni": "while I grieved."
Second line, "kagami no kage mo": "kage" is the reflection in the mirror. "Mo," "too," implies "not only the pledge but my reflection too," answering "nomi ka wa" in the last line.
Third line, "otoroenu": "nu" is the perfective, "it has faded." The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "chigirishi koto no": "the promise we made for the future." Like "chigirishi naka" in 910 and 951 of this book, it speaks of vows exchanged.
Fifth line, "kawaru nomi ka wa": "nomi" is restrictive and "ka wa" a rhetorical particle, "is it only the pledge that changes? no, my face has changed too." Like "mina kawarinuru" in the last line of 927 of this book, it sings of a change of heart.
Author: Retired Emperor Sutoku
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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