Okonai no shirushi mo araba kazuragi no hashitanashi tote sate ya yaminan - Izumi Shikibu Nikki(English Translation & Meaning)

行のしるしもあらは葛城の
はしたなしとてさてややみなん

Roma-ji: Okonai no shirushi mo araba kazuragi no hashitanashi tote sate ya yaminan
English Translation: If my devotions
have any power at all,
would the Kazuragi god,
for all his shame, just leave it so
and never build again?
Meaning: If my devotions have any power at all, would the god of Kazuragi really leave the work unfinished simply because he felt ashamed?
Commentary: 30 The God of Katsuragi

The prince, who had visited disguised in a woman's carriage, exchanged a linked verse with Izumi Shikibu about the spindle-tree leaves as he left, and was delighted anew to find her a woman of feeling. She, for her part, embarrassed at being seen by daylight for the first time, had been dazzled by the splendor of the prince in his informal robe.
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.
Izumi Shikibu's "Kazuragi no kami mo sa koso wa omoikeme kumeji ni watasu hashitanaki made" arrived with the words "I felt hopelessly ashamed," and the prince at once sent back this poem.
After this exchange the prince visited more often than before, and she felt her loneliness consoled beyond measure.
The god of Kazuragi figures in a legend in which the ascetic En no Gyōja ordered Hitokotonushi, the god of Mount Kazuragi, to build a stone bridge from Kazuragi to Kinpusen in Yoshino; ashamed of his ugly face, the god worked only by night, and so the bridge was never finished.

The opening lines mean "if my religious practice has any power," the practice being Buddhist devotions and its power their efficacy; he likens himself to the legendary ascetic who made the god build the bridge. The third line takes up her "god of Kazuragi."
The lower verses ask "would he stop just like that because he felt ashamed?" taking up her wordplay on "hashitanashi" exactly, with a rhetorical particle and auxiliaries of emphasis and conjecture. Casting the bashful woman as the god and himself as the ascetic who commands him, he declares that he will not let shame halt the bridge between them halfway, hinting at his resolve to bring her to his residence.
Author: Prince Atsumichi
Source: Izumi Shikibu Nikki
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