Tamamo karu Irago ga saki no iwanematsu ikuyo made ni ka toshi no henuran - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

玉藻刈る伊良湖が崎の岩根松
幾代までにか年の経ぬらん

Roma-ji: Tamamo karu Irago ga saki no iwanematsu ikuyo made ni ka toshi no henuran
English Translation: On Irago's cape
where they cut the jeweled weed,
the pine upon the rock,
through how many ages now
has it passed its years?
Meaning: The pine rooted in the rock on the cape of Irago, where people gather the jewel-like seaweed: through how many ages has it lived out its years?
Commentary: Book Sixteen Miscellaneous Poems I 1044

Headnote: "Composed on the pine, among the poems of a hundred-poem sequence"
This poem was composed on the pine within a hundred-poem sequence. The pine rooted in the rock on the cape of Irago, where jeweled seaweed is cut, through how many ages has it passed its years, he asks. In the pine that has rooted itself in the seaside rocks and endured wind and snow, he imagines immeasurable years, praising the pine's long life.
The author, "Akisue, Master of the Office of Palace Repairs," is Fujiwara no Akisue. The original writes the office with an erroneous character, which is taken as a mistake for Master of the Office of Palace Repairs. A son of Fujiwara no Takatsune, he served as a close retainer of Retired Emperor Shirakawa, as master of the office of palace repairs and other posts. He founded the Rokujō Fujiwara house and began the Hitomaro Eigu, a gathering at which poems were composed before a portrait of Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.
It answers the opening poem, 959, "tani no matsu to ya toshi o tsumamashi," in heaping long years upon a pine. It is also close to "Sumiyoshi no matsu" in 1033 of this book in singing of a pine by the sea.

First line, "tamamo karu": "where the jeweled seaweed is cut," long used as words leading to the place Irago.
Second line, "Irago ga saki no": the cape at the tip of the Atsumi Peninsula in Mikawa Province, a famous place.
Third line, "iwanematsu": "a pine rooted in the rock." It answers "tani no matsu to ya" in the fourth line of the opening poem, 959.
Fourth line, "ikuyo made ni ka": "ka" is an interrogative binding particle closing with "ran" in the fifth line, "through how many ages."
Fifth line, "toshi no henuran": "nu" is the perfective and "ran" the auxiliary of present conjecture, "has it passed its years?" It answers "toshi o tsumamashi" in the fifth line of the opening poem, 959.
Author: Fujiwara no Akisue
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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