Okuyama no iwakakinuma no ukinunawa fukaki koiji ni nani midareken - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

奥山の岩垣沼のうきぬなは
深きこひぢに何乱れけん

Roma-ji: Okuyama no iwakakinuma no ukinunawa fukaki koiji ni nani midareken
English Translation: Like the floating weed
in a rock-walled marsh deep within
the far mountains, why
have I become so tangled
in the deep mire of love's road?
Meaning: Like the water shield floating in a rock-walled marsh deep in the mountains, its stems tangled in the deep mud, why have I, in my sorrow, become so entangled on love's deep road?
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 941

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed by His Majesty as a love poem when he called for hundred-poem sequences"
A love poem from the same hundred-poem sequence as the three preceding poems. Like the floating water shield of a rock-walled marsh deep in the mountains, he asks, why have I become so tangled on love's deep road? In the water shield that floats on a marsh walled by rocks deep in the remote mountains, its long stems tangled in the deep mud, he sees himself, secretly lost in a deep love. Using the first three lines as a preface, and pivoting "uki" between "floating" and "sorrowful" and "koiji" between "mud" and "love's road," it is a highly crafted poem.
The author, "Shunzei, Master of the Empress Dowager's Household," was the son of Provisional Middle Counselor Fujiwara no Toshitada. He served as Master of the Empress Dowager's Household, later took the tonsure under the name Shakua, and compiled this anthology at the command of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa.
Like 912 of this book, "yama yori mo fukaki tokoro o," it lays the depth of the mountains over the depth of love. This poem and the next, 942, are two poems in a row by Shunzei.

First line, "okuyama no": "of the deep mountains," far from human dwellings. Like "yama yori mo" in the first line of 912 of this book, it lays the depth of the mountains over the depth of love.
Second line, "iwakakinuma no": "iwakakinuma" is a marsh surrounded by rocks as if by a fence, a place hidden from the eyes of others.
Third line, "ukinunawa": "nunawa" is the water shield, a water plant, and "uki" pivots between "uki," "floating" on the water, and "uki," "sorrowful." The first three lines form a preface leading to "midare," "tangle," in the last line.
Fourth line, "fukaki koiji ni": "koiji" pivots between "koiji," "mud" of the marsh, and "koiji," "love's road." "Fukaki," "deep," overlays the depth of the marsh and the depth of love. It shares "fukaki" with "fukaki tokoro o" in the second line of 912 of this book.
Fifth line, "nani midareken": "nani" means "why," and "ken" is the auxiliary "kemu" guessing at a past cause, "why did I become so tangled?" It overlays the water shield's stems tangled in the mud with a heart thrown into disorder by love.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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