Naozari no soradanome tote machishi yo no kurushikarishi zo ima wa koishiki - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

なほざりのそら頼めとて待ちし夜の
苦しかりしぞ今は恋しき

Roma-ji: Naozari no soradanome tote machishi yo no kurushikarishi zo ima wa koishiki
English Translation: Those nights I waited,
knowing full well your promise
was careless and vain,
how painful they were, and yet
now it is those I long for
Meaning: Those nights I spent waiting on your careless, empty promises were so painful, and yet now it is those very nights that I long for.
Commentary: Book Fifteen Love Poems V 945

Headnote: "Composed as a love poem"
Composed as a love poem. The pain of the nights I waited on careless, empty promises, she says, is what I now long for. Once she waited on her lover's half-hearted promises, and the nights of waiting for one who never came were bitter, but now that his visits have stopped altogether, even that pain of waiting has become dear to her, and she sings of lingering attachment to a lost love.
The author, "Inpumon'in no Taifu," was the daughter of Fujiwara no Nobunari. A lady-in-waiting poet who served Princess Ryōshi, the Inpumon'in, daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa, she was known as a prolific poet and has a poem in the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu.
It shares the second line "soradanome tote" with the preceding poem, 944. That poem regrets having reproached empty promises, and this one says that the nights of suffering from empty promises are now dear, so that both look back from the present on the time of empty hopes.

First line, "naozari no": "naozari" means half-hearted, not in earnest.
Second line, "soradanome tote": "soradanome" is an unreliable promise, and "tote" means "knowing it to be." It is the same as the second line of the preceding poem, 944.
Third line, "machishi yo no": "shi" is the attributive of the past "ki," "of the nights I waited."
Fourth line, "kurushikarishi zo": "kurushikari" is the continuative of the adjective "kurushi," "painful," and "shi" the attributive of the past "ki," "how painful they were." The emphatic "zo" closes with the attributive "koishiki" in the last line.
Fifth line, "ima wa koishiki": "koishiki," the attributive of the adjective "koishi," closes the "zo" of the fourth line. Contrasting "kurushi," "painful," with "koishi," "dear," and the nights of the past with "now," it expresses the reversal by which a painful past has become dear. Like "omoitaetaru kure" in the preceding poem, 944, it sings of a present in which there is no longer even any waiting.
Author: Inpumon-in no Taifu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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