Matamashi mo kabakari koso wa aramashika omoi mo kakenu kyō no yūgure - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

またましもかはかり社︀は有まし[か]
思もかけぬけふの夕暮

Roma-ji: Matamashi mo kabakari koso wa aramashika omoi mo kakenu kyō no yūgure
English Translation: Had I been waiting,
would it have been so hard as this,
the dusk of today,
when never did I even dream
that I should wait for you?
Meaning: Even had I been waiting for you, would it have been as hard as this? And yet this evening I never even thought you would come.
Commentary: 4 Waiting at Dusk

The morning after their first night, having exchanged morning-after poems with the prince, Izumi Shikibu wondered at her own strange fate and grieved, remembering how much the late prince had once said to her. When the familiar page boy arrived, she thought he brought a letter from the prince, but he did not. Though she chided herself for feeling hurt like some woman given to love, she entrusted a poem to the boy as he went back.
The woman is Izumi Shikibu, daughter of Ōe no Masamune and, as the wife of Tachibana no Michisada, Governor of Izumi, mother of Koshikibu no Naishi. The prince is Prince Atsumichi, fourth son of Emperor Reizei. His principal wife was a daughter of Fujiwara no Naritoki, whose elder sister Seishi was a consort of the Crown Prince Okisada. The late prince was Atsumichi's elder brother by the same mother, Prince Tametaka, who had died in the sixth month of Chōhō 4 (1002).
At dusk on the day after their first meeting, as the day darkened without a word or a visit from the prince, Izumi Shikibu composed this poem out of her loneliness.
The prince was deeply touched, but he was not one to make such secret outings. Though his marriage to his principal wife was not an ordinary one, going out every night would surely arouse suspicion, and until the first anniversary of his brother's death he held back, unwilling to be harshly criticized for visiting his brother's lover. That too was because his feelings were not yet so deep. After dark a reply came from him: "Hitasura ni matsu to mo iwaba yasurawade yukubeki mono o imo ga ieji ni."

The first three lines ask whether it would have been this hard even had she been waiting, using an auxiliary of the counterfactual to suppose a promised visit, sealed by an emphatic construction.
The lower verses, "the dusk of today, which I never expected," end on a noun. Though no visit was promised, she says, the evening is as painful as if she were waiting, quietly letting him know how unexpectedly deep her love has grown.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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