Inishie mo soko ni shizumishi mi naredomo nao koishiki wa Shirakawa no mizu - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いにしへも底に沈みし身なれども
なほ恋しきは白川の水

Roma-ji: Inishie mo soko ni shizumishi mi naredomo nao koishiki wa Shirakawa no mizu
English Translation: Long ago, as well,
I was one who lay sunk deep
at the very bottom,
and yet still what I long for
is the water of Shirakawa
Meaning: Even in those days I was a man sunk at the bottom of the stream, and yet what I still long for is the water of the Shirakawa.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1081

Headnote: "Composed when I wrote a poem expressing my grievances, remembering how I once served close to Retired Emperor Shirakawa"
This poem was composed when he was writing poems of grievance, remembering how he had once served close to Retired Emperor Shirakawa. Even then I was sunk at the bottom, yet what I still long for is the water of the Shirakawa, he says. Even in the days when he served the retired emperor, he was never a man in the sun but lay buried as if at the bottom of a river. Still, he longs for that reign, and he sings of his yearning by linking the retired emperor's name to the waters of the Shirakawa.
The author, "Fujiwara no Iemoto (in religion Sokaku)," was a poet of the late Heian period who took the tonsure and was called Sokaku. The headnote shows that he served close to Retired Emperor Shirakawa, but his biography is not known in detail.
It shares a turning to the past with "mukashi wa oi o" in the fourth line of the preceding poem, 1080. It also shares the image of misfortune as sinking in a river with "shizumu to kiku wa" in the second line of 1118 of this book.

First line, "inishie mo": "in the past as well," the days when he served Retired Emperor Shirakawa.
Second line, "soko ni shizumishi": "sunk at the bottom of the river," a figure for being buried in obscurity. It is an associated word of "Shirakawa no mizu" in the fifth line.
Third line, "mi naredomo": "though I was such a one," a concessive leading into the lower verse.
Fourth line, "nao koishiki wa": "what I still long for."
Fifth line, "Shirakawa no mizu": the water of the Shirakawa, which flows east of the capital, linking the reign of Retired Emperor Shirakawa to the name of the river. The poem ends on a noun.
Author: Fujiwara no Iemoto
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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