Shikishinobu toko dani taenu namida ni mo koi wa kuchisenu mono ni zo arikeru - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

しきしのぶ床だに堪へぬ涙にも
恋は朽ちせぬものにぞありける

Roma-ji: Shikishinobu toko dani taenu namida ni mo koi wa kuchisenu mono ni zo arikeru
English Translation: Though my tears, as I
spread my robe and long for you,
are more than even
the bed can bear, love, I find,
is a thing that never rots
Meaning: Spreading my robe on the bed, I long for you again and again, and though my tears are more than even the bed can bear, love, I find, is a thing that never rots away.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 942

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 four preceding poems. Even in tears that the bed where I spread my robe and long for you cannot bear, he says, love proves a thing that does not rot. The tears he sheds longing for his beloved on his lonely bed are so many that even the bed cannot bear them and would rot, yet he realizes that the love alone does not rot in those tears, and sings of a longing without end.
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.
Poem 920 of this book sings of a dry bed where dust gathers, while this poem sings of a bed that cannot bear the tears, so that the two form a pair. And where 905 and 940 sing of sleeves rotting with tears, this poem says that love alone does not rot in tears that would rot even the bed.

First line, "shikishinobu": "shiki" pivots between "shiki," "spreading" a robe on the bed, and "shiki," "again and again," and the line means "longing for the beloved."
Second line, "toko dani taenu": "dani" is an adverbial particle, "even the bed." "Taenu" means "cannot bear," tears so many that even the bed would rot. It shares "toko" with "toko no keshiki o" in the last line of 920 of this book.
Third line, "namida ni mo": "even in such tears." Following "namida kana" in 939 and "otsuru namida ka" in 940, it sings of tears.
Fourth line, "koi wa kuchisenu": "kuchise" is the irrealis of "kuchisu," "to rot," and "nu" the attributive of the negative "zu," "love does not rot." It is set against the second line, which suggests that even the bed would rot.
Fifth line, "mono ni zo arikeru": the emphatic "zo" closes with the attributive "keru." "Keru" expresses realization, "it proves to be such a thing."
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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