Nezameneba kikanu naruran ogikaze wa fukazarame ya wa aki no yonayona - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

ね覺ねはきかぬ成らん荻風は
ふかさらめやは秋のよな〳〵

Roma-ji: Nezameneba kikanu naruran ogikaze wa fukazarame ya wa aki no yonayona
English Translation: It must be because
you never wake that you don't hear;
the wind in the reeds—
how could it ever fail to blow
through these autumn nights?
Meaning: It must be because you do not wake in the night that you never hear it; how could the wind in the reeds fail to blow, night after autumn night?
Commentary: 19 Wind in the Reeds

After their Tanabata exchange, the end of the seventh month came. A letter arrived from the prince: "We have grown very distant; why do you not write to me now and then? You seem not to count me as anyone at all."
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 of the Dazaifu is Prince Atsumichi, fourth son of Emperor Reizei, so called because he served as Governor-General of the Dazaifu.
To answer the prince's reproach that she sent no word, Izumi Shikibu composed this poem, retorting that her thoughts went out to him every autumn night.
The prince wrote back at once: "Ah, you. 'Because you never wake,' you say? One wakes in the night when one is troubled by love, yet you think my feelings shallow," and replied with "Ogikaze wa fukaba i mo nede ima yori zo odorokasu ka to kikubekarikeru."

The opening lines mean "it must be because you do not wake that you do not hear," with a negative in a conditional of fact and auxiliaries of assertion and present conjecture.
The remaining lines mean "would the wind in the reeds fail to blow on every autumn night?" with a rhetorical particle. In waka the rustle of reed leaves suggests a lover's visit or message, and here it stands for the thoughts she sends him every night. She is not failing to write, she says; it is only that he does not wake to notice, and so she gently answers his reproach.
Author: Izumi Shikibu
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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