Saraba tada sarade zo hito no yaminamashi sate nochi mo sa wa sa mo araji to ya

さらばたださらでぞ人のやみなまし
さて後もさはさもあらじとや

Roma-ji: Saraba tada sarade zo hito no yaminamashi sate nochi mo sa wa sa mo araji to ya
English Translation: If so, then simply
not so should you have let it
come to its ending:
and after, is it that so
it never again shall be?
Meaning: If that is how it is, you should simply have ended it without ever meeting me. Are you saying that, after this, it will never be so again?
Commentary: Love Poems 591

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Love that has met and now cannot meet"
To a lover who met him once and will not meet him again, the poet complains that she might as well have ended it from the start without ever meeting him. The repeated sa sounds, saraba, sarade, sate, sa wa, sa mo, give a pressing, halting tone in which the frustration of a broken-off love can be felt.
On the same topic as the preceding poem, which said that resentment arose because they had met once, this poem turns to the lover and retorts that had she ended it without meeting, there would have been no resentment at all.

First line, “saraba tada”: if that is so, then simply; the run of sa sounds begins here.
Second line, “sarade zo hito no”: sarade is without doing so, without meeting; the binding particle zo answers mashi in the third line.
Third line, “yaminamashi”: yamu is to end it, na intensifies and mashi is counterfactual: she should have ended it. The poem breaks after the third line.
Fourth line, “sate nochi mo sa wa”: and so, even after that one meeting, in that way.
Fifth line, “sa mo araji to ya”: is it that there shall be no such thing? closing by questioning her heart.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
Prev Poem: Tsuraku tomo awazu wa nani no narai ni ka mi no hodo shirazu hito o uramin
Next Poem: Morasaji to sode ni amaru o tsutsumamashi nasake o shinobu namida nariseba