Onozukara arieba to koso omoitsure tanomi naku naru waga inochi kana

おのづからありへばとこそ思ひつれ
頼みなくなる我が命かな

Roma-ji: Onozukara arieba to koso omoitsure tanomi naku naru waga inochi kana
English Translation: 'If I but live on,
in time all will come right,' I
had thought it surely—
yet now it fails, I find,
this life I leaned upon.
Meaning: I had thought that if I only lived on, things would come right of themselves—yet this life of mine is growing too frail to rely on.
Commentary: Miscellaneous Poems 1292

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "One hundred and ten love poems"
He had thought that if he lived on, love would somehow come right, but his very life is becoming unreliable, the poet says.
He had hoped time would resolve things, but love's pain wears his life thin until he cannot even wait, a despair in contrast to 1288, where he resolved to live to see her true heart.

First line, “onozukara”: of itself, naturally.
Second line, “arieba to koso”: ariu is to live on; koso is answered by the realis tsure.
Third line, “omoitsure”: "I had thought," leading on concessively; the poem breaks here.
Fourth line, “tanomi naku naru”: becoming unreliable; the text writes tanomi with the character 憑.
Fifth line, “waga inochi kana”: kana is exclamatory.
Author: Saigyō
Source: Sankashu
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