Tatesomete kaeru kokoro wa nishikigi no chitsuka matsu beki kokochi koso sene

立て初めて帰る心は錦木の
千束待つべき心地こそせね

Roma-ji: Tatesomete kaeru kokoro wa nishikigi no chitsuka matsu beki kokochi koso sene
English Translation: Having just begun
to set them up, I turn home,
and the painted sticks,
to wait for a thousand sheaves,
that I have no heart to do.
Meaning: Turning back for home when I have only just begun to set up the painted sticks at your gate, I have no heart at all to wait until they number a thousand bundles.
Commentary: Love Poems 579

Headnote: "Turning back from the gate"
The topic is love that reaches the beloved's gate and turns back without meeting. In Michinoku there was said to be a custom by which a man set up a painted stick, nishikigi, at the gate of the woman he loved; if she accepted him she took it in, and if not he went on setting them up until there were a thousand bundles. Here the poet, having only just begun to set up his sticks and now turning for home, says he has no heart to wait until they number a thousand, expressing both the pain of leaving the gate and a love that cannot bear to wait.

First line, “tatesomete”: having just begun to set up the sticks.
Second line, “kaeru kokoro wa”: the heart that turns back from the gate without meeting, answering the topic.
Third line, “nishikigi no”: nishikigi are the painted sticks set up by a man at a woman's gate in the custom of Michinoku, linked to tate, to set up, in the first line.
Fourth line, “chitsuka matsu beki”: chitsuka is a thousand bundles; able to wait until there are so many.
Fifth line, “kokochi koso sene”: I have no such feeling at all; the binding particle koso is answered by ne, the perfective form of the negative zu.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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