Ima wa tote irinan nochi zo omohoyuru yamaji o fukami tou hito mo nashi - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

今はとて入りなん後ぞ思ほゆる
山路を深み訪ふ人もなし

Roma-ji: Ima wa tote irinan nochi zo omohoyuru yamaji o fukami tou hito mo nashi
English Translation: "Now is the end," I say,
and I think of after that,
when I have gone in;
so deep the mountain pathway,
no one will come to call
Meaning: I find myself thinking of the time after I have said "this is the end" and gone into the mountains. The mountain path is so deep that no one will come to visit.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1058

Headnote: "Composed when I had gone up the mountain and was spending some time in religious practice"
This poem was composed while he was on the mountain for a while, engaged in religious practice. I think of the time after I say "this is the end" and go into the mountains; the path is so deep that no one will visit, he says. Secluded in the mountains for a short spell of practice, feeling the depth of the hills and the loneliness of having no visitors, he imagines that it will be just so when he truly leaves the world and enters the mountains.
The author, "Former Major Counselor Kintō," is Fujiwara no Kintō. A son of the regent Fujiwara no Yoritada, he rose to major counselor. Excelling in waka, Chinese verse and music alike, he compiled the Wakan Rōeishū. In his later years he took the tonsure and lived in retirement at Nagatani.

First line, "ima wa tote": "thinking this is the end," expressing the resolve to leave the world.
Second line, "irinan nochi zo": "na" is the irrealis of the perfective auxiliary "nu" and "n" the attributive of the conjectural "mu," "after I have gone in." "Zo" is an emphatic binding particle closing with "omohoyuru" in the third line.
Third line, "omohoyuru": "it comes to mind," closing the binding. The poem pauses here.
Fourth line, "yamaji o fukami": the "o ... mi" construction gives a reason, "because the mountain path is deep."
Fifth line, "tou hito mo nashi": "no one comes to visit." It is the same fifth line as 1097 of this book, and both sing of the loneliness of a life no one visits.
Author: Fujiwara no Kintō
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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