Miyako e to omou mo mono no kanashiki wa kaeranu hito no areba narikeri - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

都へとおもふもものゝかなしきは
かへらぬ人のあればなりけり

Roma-ji: Miyako e to omou mo mono no kanashiki wa kaeranu hito no areba narikeri
English Translation: As I think of home
in the capital, the cause
of this sorrow is
that there is one among us
who will not be going back
Meaning: Even as I long for the capital, a sorrow I cannot name weighs on me—and it is because there is one among us who will never return.
Commentary: 7 The Twenty-Seventh Day of the Twelfth Month: From Ōtsu toward Urado, Mourning a Lost Daughter

On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, the party rowed out from Ōtsu toward Urado. Amid this departure, a little girl born in the capital had suddenly died here in Tosa, and so, watching the bustle of preparations, no one could find anything to say. Though they were going home to the capital, all they could feel was grief and longing for the girl who was no longer with them, and those around could not hold back their tears.
The "certain person" is not named, but, like the figure who leaves the governor's residence at the opening of the diary after completing his term, he is taken to be the former Governor of Tosa, Ki no Tsurayuki. The girl who died was his daughter; born in the capital, she had come down to Tosa when her father took up his post.
This poem was written down and handed over by that person as preparations for the return went on. Even within the joy of going home, it gives voice to grief for the daughter who cannot return with them.
On another occasion he also composed "Aru mono to wasuretsutsu nao naki hito o izura to tou zo kanashikarikeru." Mourning for the lost daughter recurs again and again over the course of the journey, continuing all the way to the scene of arrival at the house in the capital, with "Umareshi mo kaeranu mono o waga yado ni komatsu no aru o miru ga kanashisa."

The first line, "Miyako e to," means "thinking to return to the capital." In the second line, "mo" is an emphatic particle, and "mono no" modifies "kanashiki" below, adding a sense of vague, nameless sadness. The third line, "kanashiki wa," joins the attributive form of the adjective "kanashi" with the particle "wa": "what makes me sad is...", posing the question of why.
In the fourth line, "kaeranu hito no," "nu" is the attributive form of the negative auxiliary "zu," and "the one who does not return" is the daughter who died in Tosa. The final line, "areba narikeri," means "it was because there is," and the copula "nari" together with the exclamatory "keri" conveys a feeling newly realized.
Built as a statement of cause, the poem finds the reason that what should be the joy of homecoming feels sorrowful in the presence of the daughter who cannot return. By setting the thought of going "to the capital" against "the one who does not return," it brings out the gulf between those who go home and the one who never will.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
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