Yuku hito mo tomaru mo sode no namidagawa migiwa nomi koso nuremasarikere - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

ゆく人もとまるも袖のなみだ川
みぎはのみこそぬれまさりけれ

Roma-ji: Yuku hito mo tomaru mo sode no namidagawa migiwa nomi koso nuremasarikere
English Translation: Those who go, and those
who stay—in the river of
tears along our sleeves,
it is only the two shores
that grow ever wetter still
Meaning: Those who go and those who stay alike shed a river of tears down their sleeves, and it is only its banks that grow wetter and wetter.
Commentary: 16 The Seventh Day of the First Month: Spring Greens at Ōminato and a Child's Reply

Even after the new year began, the party remained at Ōminato. The seventh day of the first month was the day of the White Horse Festival in the capital, but here all they could see was the whiteness of the waves. Amid this, from someone living at a place called Ike, or "Pond," came load after load of long chests carried on poles, filled not with carp but with crucian carp and other fish from river and sea, accompanied by young spring greens. It was those greens that reminded them this was the seventh day.
The sender was a woman of good standing who had come down to Tosa with her husband and lived at the place called Ike. On this day there was also a man who came calling with a packed lunch, but the diary notes that his name cannot be recalled.
Since no one had replied to the lunch-bearer's "Yukusaki ni tatsu shiranami no koe yori mo okurete nakamu ware ya masaramu," a child, the son of a certain person, quietly said, "I'll answer that poem." The adults were surprised and urged him to say it at once if he could, but the child said he would wait for the man who had left. The man, perhaps because the night had grown late, went home without returning. Asked how he had phrased it, the child was too shy to say; only when pressed did he finally recite this poem.
The adults marveled that such a thing could be said, wondering whether it was because he was such an endearing child, and found it quite unexpected. Since a reply in a child's name would hardly do, they decided to present it as the work of an old woman and send it whenever the chance arose, good or bad, and so it seems it was set aside.

The first line, "Yuku hito mo," means "those who go," and the second, "tomaru mo sode no," continues "and those who stay, their sleeves." The third line, "namidagawa," is a word likening flowing tears to a river.
In the fourth line, "migiwa" means the water's edge, here the sleeves that form the banks of the river of tears. "Nomi" limits and "koso" emphasizes, and in the final line, "nuremasarikere," "kere" is the realis form of the exclamatory auxiliary "keri," completing the kakari-musubi construction.
Where the other poem, with "okurete nakamu ware ya masaramu," asked whether the sorrow of the one left behind would not be greater, this reply answers that both those who go and those who stay are weeping, so that both banks of the river of tears grow wetter together. Answering "white waves" and "voice" with "river of tears" and "water's edge," it responds through associations of water, a deft reply beyond what one would expect of a child.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
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