Katsuragi ya watashi mo hatenu mono yue ni Kume no iwahashi koke oinikeri - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

葛城や渡しも果てぬものゆゑに
久米の岩橋苔生ひにけり

Roma-ji: Katsuragi ya watashi mo hatenu mono yue ni Kume no iwahashi koke oinikeri
English Translation: Over Katsuragi
though it never was completed
all the way across,
the stone bridge of Kume
has grown covered now with moss
Meaning: At Katsuragi the stone bridge of Kume was never finished, and yet it has grown thick with moss.
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1042

Headnote: "Composed as a poem on a bridge when I presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of Emperor Horikawa"
This poem was composed as a poem on a bridge when he presented a hundred-poem sequence in the reign of Emperor Horikawa. Though the stone bridge of Kume at Katsuragi was never finished, it has grown over with moss, he says. Drawing on the legend that the god Hitokotonushi of Mount Katsuragi was ordered by En no Gyōja to build a stone bridge but, ashamed of his looks, worked only at night and never finished it, he sings of the unfinished bridge gone mossy over long years.
The author, "Major Counselor Moroyori," is Minamoto no Moroyori. A son of Minister of the Left Minamoto no Toshifusa, he rose to major counselor.
Following the Nagara Bridge in 1030 to 1032 of this book, this poem too sings of a bridge. Where the Nagara Bridge has decayed without a trace, this one sings of a stone bridge grown mossy without ever being completed, so that the two bridges, each showing the passage of time, form a contrast.

First line, "Katsuragi ya": Mount Katsuragi in Yamato Province, with "ya" as an exclamatory particle.
Second line, "watashi mo hatenu": "watasu" means to span with a bridge and "hatenu" not to finish, "never spanned to the end."
Third line, "mono yue ni": an adversative conjunctive particle, "though."
Fourth line, "Kume no iwahashi": the legendary stone bridge that was to span the gap between Mount Katsuragi and Kinpusen at Yoshino, but was never completed.
Fifth line, "koke oinikeri": "ni" is the continuative of the perfective "nu" and "keri" exclamatory, "moss has grown over it." It shares the years that have passed over a bridge with "ato mo nashi" in the third line of 1032 of this book.
Author: Minamoto no Moroyori
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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