Umareshi mo kaeranu mono o waga yado ni komatsu no aru o miru ga kanashisa - Tosa Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

うまれしもかへらぬものを我がやどに
小松のあるを見るがかなしさ

Roma-ji: Umareshi mo kaeranu mono o waga yado ni komatsu no aru o miru ga kanashisa
English Translation: Though she who was born
here has not come home with us,
in my own garden
to see a young pine growing—
oh, the sorrow of that sight
Meaning: The child born in this house has not come home, and yet a young pine has sprung up in my garden—how it grieves me to see it.
Commentary: 55 The Sixteenth Day of the Second Month: Crossing the Katsura River and Arriving Home

On the sixteenth day of the second month, as they went up toward the capital around evening, they saw that the paintings on the shop chests of Yamazaki and the shape of the main street at Magari were unchanged from before. At Shimasaka someone offered them hospitality. Thinking to enter the capital after nightfall, they took their time, and meanwhile the moon rose. The party crossed the Katsura River under the bright moon. People said to one another, "This river is not the Asuka River, so its deep pools and shallows have not changed at all." Late at night they entered the capital, and when they reached the house and passed through the gate, the moon was so bright that everything could be clearly seen. The house was more broken down and ruined than they had heard, beyond words.
The Katsura River flows west of the capital and is crossed when entering the capital from Yamazaki. The Asuka River was regarded as the very emblem of change because of the Kokin Wakashū poem "Yo no naka wa nani ka tsune naru asukagawa kinō no fuchi zo kyō wa se ni naru." The house had been entrusted to the neighbor, whose home was separated only by a fence so that the two were almost one house; he had asked to look after it, and they had sent him things from time to time while they were away.
Within the grounds was a hollow where water had collected like a pond, and beside it there had been a pine. Perhaps a thousand years had passed in those five or six years, for the pine had lost the branches on one side, and young pines that had newly sprung up were mixed among them. Looking at the ruin, people sighed, "How sad." Amid memories that left nothing unrecalled and a mounting longing, how sorrowful it was that the girl born in this house had not come home with them. The others who had shared the boat all had children crowding around them, clamoring. Unable to bear the grief amid all this, the speaker quietly composed this poem, sharing it with someone who understood.
Still not satisfied, perhaps, the speaker went on to compose "Mishi hito no matsu no chitose ni mimashikaba tōku kanashiki wakare semashi ya." The diary closes by saying that there are many things unforgettable and regrettable that cannot all be told, and that in any case these pages should be torn up and thrown away at once.

The first line, "Umareshi mo," means "even the child who was born here," with "shi" the attributive form of the past auxiliary "ki." The second line, "kaeranu mono o," means "has not returned, and yet," "mono o" being a concessive particle. The third line, "waga yado ni," continues "in my house."
The fourth line, "komatsu no aru o," means "that a young pine has newly grown." The final line, "miru ga kanashisa," ends on a noun: the sorrow of seeing it.
The poem contrasts the young pine that has sprung up and grown while the family was away with the daughter who was born in this house yet never came back. The image of the young pine, a new life sprouting, recalls all the more sharply the life of the daughter that was lost. The mourning for the lost child, repeated again and again throughout the journey, reaches its peak in this scene of homecoming.
Author: Ki no Tsurayuki
Source: Tosa Nikki
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