Ikade ka wa omoi ari to mo shirasu beki Muro no Yashima no keburi nara de wa - Shika Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いかでかはおもひありとも知らすべき
室の八島の煙ならでは

Roma-ji: Ikade ka wa omoi ari to mo shirasu beki Muro no Yashima no keburi nara de wa
English Translation: How could I ever
let you know there burns in me
this flame of longing,
save by the smoke that rises
at Muro no Yashima
Meaning: How could I ever let you know of the fire of longing within me, unless it rose like the smoke that drifts above Muro no Yashima?
Commentary: Book Seven Love Poems I 188

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet entrusts his secret love to the smoke of Muro no Yashima, a famous poetic place. Feelings he cannot confess in words, he suggests, will never reach the beloved unless they rise into view like smoke from a hidden fire.
The poem was chosen by Fujiwara no Teika for his anthology Teika Hachidaisho and also for Hachidaishu Shuitsu, his selection of ten masterpieces from each of the eight imperial anthologies, making it one of the representative love poems of the Shikawakashu.

The first line, "ikade ka wa," is a rhetorical adverb leading to the sense of "how could I possibly let you know."
The second line, "omoi ari to mo," plays on "hi" in "omoi" as fire and forms an associated image with the smoke of the last line. It takes up the fire of longing from the preceding poem, 187, and develops it toward a fire that burns unseen by the beloved.
The third line, "shirasu beki," completes the rhetorical question begun by "ikade ka wa." The next poem, 189, answers with "shirarenu mi" (one never known), setting the one who would make it known beside the one who dies unknown.
The fourth line, "Muro no Yashima no," names a poetic place in Shimotsuke Province, present-day Tochigi, where vapor was said to rise like smoke, and which poets conventionally associated with smoke.
The final line, "keburi nara de wa" (save by the smoke), closes with a limitation: there is no way for the hidden feeling to show itself except as smoke.
Author: Fujiwara no Sanekata
Source: Shika Wakashu
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