Asamashi ya nori no yamaji ni irisomete miyako e isa to tare sasoiken - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

あさましやのりの山ちに入そめて
都へいさと誰さそひけん

Roma-ji: Asamashi ya nori no yamaji ni irisomete miyako e isa to tare sasoiken
English Translation: How astonishing!
On the mountain road of the Law
you'd only just set out—
who was it, then, that said to you,
"Come, back to the capital"?
Meaning: How astonishing! You had only just set foot on the mountain path of the Buddha's Law; who could it have been that invited you, saying, "Come, back to the capital"?
Commentary: 21 The Pilgrimage to Ishiyama

When the eighth month came, Izumi Shikibu set out for Ishiyama Temple to ease her idleness, meaning to stay about seven days. Thinking that he had not written for a long time, the prince was about to send a letter when the page boy told him, "I went the other day, but they say she is at Ishiyama Temple these days." "Then today is already over," said the prince. "Go tomorrow morning." The boy came to Ishiyama with the prince's letter. Even before the Buddha, Izumi Shikibu's heart was elsewhere; she longed only for the capital and was saddened to think that such a pilgrimage was a sign of how much her life had changed, and she prayed earnestly to the Buddha. Just then she sensed someone below the railing, and looking down in surprise, she saw the page boy. Moved that he had come to so unexpected a place, she had someone ask why, and he held out a letter. She opened it more eagerly than usual.
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. Ishiyama Temple is a sacred site of Kannon in the province of Ōmi, in present-day Ōtsu, Shiga, reached from the capital by crossing the Ōsaka Barrier.
Invited by Izumi Shikibu's "Kokoromi ni ono ga kokoro mo kokoromimu isa miyako e to kite sasoimin," the prince, taken by surprise, wished he could go if only he were able, but it was impossible. Meanwhile she came down from the mountain, so he wrote, "You told me to come and invite you, yet you left in such a hurry," and sent this poem.
To this Izumi Shikibu replied only with "Yama o idete kuraki michi ni zo tadorinishi ima hitotabi no au koto ni yori."

The first line, "how astonishing," ends in an exclamatory particle. The second and third lines mean "having just set out on the mountain road of the Law," the mountain road being her retreat at Ishiyama, with a verb meaning to begin.
The lower verses ask "who invited you, saying, 'Come, to the capital'?" taking up her "come, to the capital" exactly, with an auxiliary of past conjecture. She had told him to come and invite her, yet she left the mountain before he could; he teases her with a feigned question, and just as she had earlier pretended not to know "who" was calling, now he answers with a "who" of his own.
Author: Prince Atsumichi
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
Prev Poem: Kokoromi ni ono ga kokoro mo kokoromimu isa miyako e to kite sasoimin
Next Poem: Yama o idete kuraki michi ni zo tadorinishi ima hitotabi no au koto ni yori