Nakarishi mo aritsutsu kaeru hito no ko o arishi mo nakute kuru ga kanashisa - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

なかりしもありつゝ歸る人の子を
ありしもなくてくるが悲しさ

Roma-ji: Nakarishi mo aritsutsu kaeru hito no ko o arishi mo nakute kuru ga kanashisa
English Translation: Those who had no child
now go home with children born—
while I, who had one,
return without her: how great
the sorrow of coming home
Meaning: Others who had no children now go home with them, while I, who had a child, come back without her—oh, the sorrow of it.
Commentary: 48 The Ninth Day of the Second Month: Nagisa-no-in and a Mother's Lament

On the ninth day of the second month, impatient, they began towing the boat upstream before dawn, but the water was low and they could only creep forward little by little. At a place called the fork of the Wada anchorage, when people begged for rice and fish, they gave some. As they went on towing the boat upstream, they passed a place called Nagisa-no-in. Seen with the past in mind it was a charming spot; on the hill behind stood pine trees, and in the inner garden plum blossoms were in bloom.
Nagisa-no-in was the site of a villa of Prince Koretaka, in present-day Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture. Prince Koretaka was the eldest son of Emperor Montoku and was on close terms with Ariwara no Narihira and others. Ariwara no Narihira was a poet of the early Heian period and one of the Six Poetic Immortals.
When they had come down from the capital to Tosa, none of the party had children, but some had given birth in the province, and now at every anchorage they boarded and disembarked with children in their arms. Seeing this, the mother of the lost child, unable to bear her grief, composed this poem.
Having composed it, the mother wept. The diarist wonders how the father must have felt on hearing it, and observes that such poems are not composed for pleasure, but are what people in China and Japan alike turn to when their feelings become unbearable. That night they stayed at a place called Udono.

The first line, "Nakarishi mo," means "those who were not," referring to children who did not exist when the party came down from the capital. The second line, "aritsutsu kaeru," means "who now are and go home," continuing into the third, "hito no ko o," "others' children."
The fourth line, "arishi mo nakute," means "the one who was is no more," referring to the speaker's own daughter, brought down from the capital. The final line, "kuru ga kanashisa," ends on a noun: the sorrow of coming home.
By setting "nakarishi" (was not) against "arishi" (was), and "ari" (is) against "naku" (is not), the poem sharply draws the difference between others going home with children who did not exist on the way down and the speaker returning having lost the child she brought. Like "Yo no naka ni omoiyaredomo ko o kouru omoi ni masaru omoi naki kana" on the eleventh day of the first month, it expresses directly the grief of a parent who has lost a child.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
Prev Poem: Kimi koite yo o furu yado no ume no hana mukashi no ka ni zo nao nioikeru
Next Poem: Sazarenami yosuru aya oba aoyagi no kage no ito shite oru ka to zo miru