Toribeyama kimi tazunu tomo kuchihatete koke no shita ni wa kotaezaramashi - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

鳥辺山君尋ぬとも朽ち果てて
苔の下には答へざらまし

Roma-ji: Toribeyama kimi tazunu tomo kuchihatete koke no shita ni wa kotaezaramashi
English Translation: At Toribe's hill,
though you should come to seek me,
I would have rotted,
and from beneath the moss
could not have answered you
Meaning: Had I died, though you came to seek me at Toribe Mountain, I would have rotted away and could give no answer from beneath the moss.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1144

Headnote: "Composed in reply when, after I had been ill and staying at a place in the Eastern Hills and had recovered, someone asked how I was"
He had been ill and staying at a place in the Eastern Hills, and after he recovered someone asked how he was; this poem was his reply. Though you came seeking me at Toribe, I would have rotted and given no answer from beneath the moss, he says. Had he died of his illness he would have been buried at Toribe in the Eastern Hills, and though his friend came to visit, his decaying body beneath the moss could not have answered. In this way, by imagining his own death, he conveys with deep feeling how narrowly he escaped.
The author, "Ōe no Kinkage," was a poet of the late Heian period whose biography is not known in detail.
It shares "koke no shita," beneath the moss, with "koke no shita ni mo" in the second line of 1155 of this book, both imagining the grave. This poem supposes the poet's own burial, while 1155 thinks of what lies beneath a late father's grave.

First line, "Toribeyama": a burial ground at the foot of the Eastern Hills of the capital, answering "Eastern Hills" in the headnote.
Second line, "kimi tazunu tomo": "even if you came to seek me," a concessive supposition.
Third line, "kuchihatete": "having rotted away entirely."
Fourth line, "koke no shita ni wa": "beneath the moss of the grave." It is the same expression as "koke no shita ni mo" in the second line of 1155 of this book.
Fifth line, "kotaezaramashi": "mashi" is the counterfactual auxiliary, "I would not have answered," implying that in fact he lived.
Author: Ōe no Kinkage
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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