Aru mono to wasuretsutsu nao naki hito o izura to tou zo kanashikarikeru - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

あるものと忘れつゝなほなき人を
いづらと問ふぞ悲しかりける

Roma-ji: Aru mono to wasuretsutsu nao naki hito o izura to tou zo kanashikarikeru
English Translation: Forgetting she's gone,
thinking her still among us,
again I ask, 'Where
is she?' of the one now lost—
and how sorrowful that is
Meaning: Forgetting again and again, as though she were still alive, I find myself asking "Where is she?" of the child who is gone—and how sorrowful that is.
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 composed on a separate occasion, following "Miyako e to omou mo mono no kanashiki wa kaeranu hito no areba narikeri," which that person had written and handed over. It speaks of the grief of forgetting, for a moment, that she has died, and searching for her all the same.
While these poems were being composed, at a place called Kako-no-saki, the governor's brothers and others came after them bearing sake, stepped down onto the rocky shore, and spoke of how hard it was to part. Thoughts of the lost daughter return again and again later in the journey, as in "Yo no naka ni omoiyaredomo ko o kouru omoi ni masaru omoi naki kana" on the eleventh day of the first month, and in the poems on the "shells of forgetting" on the fourth day of the second month.

The first line, "Aru mono to," means "as one still living," showing that the speaker feels as though the daughter were still close by. In the second line, "tsutsu" is a conjunctive particle of repetition, "forgetting again and again that she has died," and "nao," "even so," carries the thought onward. The third line, "naki hito o," refers to the one who is gone: the daughter.
In the fourth line, "izura" is a word asking where someone is, and "zo" is an emphatic particle. The final line, "kanashikarikeru," answers "zo" in the kakari-musubi construction, with the exclamatory auxiliary "keri" taking its attributive form "keru."
"Aru" (living) in the first line is set against "naki" (gone) in the third, capturing the drop from the instant of believing her alive to the instant of being reminded of her death. Where "Miyako e to omou mo mono no kanashiki wa kaeranu hito no areba narikeri" attaches grief to the great event of the homecoming, this poem captures the sense of loss that surfaces in small, unguarded moments of everyday life.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
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