Hitoyo to wa itsu ka chigirishi kawatake no nagarete to koso omoisomeshika - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

ひとよとはいつか契りし川竹の
流れてとこそ思ひ初めしか

Roma-ji: Hitoyo to wa itsu ka chigirishi kawatake no nagarete to koso omoisomeshika
English Translation: One night, one joint,
when did I ever pledge that,
for like river bamboo
I thought our love would flow on long
when first I fell for you
Meaning: When did I ever pledge that it would be for one night only? Like bamboo by the river, I thought our love would flow on long when I first began to love you.
Commentary: Book Seven Love Poems I 397

The poet asks when he ever promised a bond of a single night, for, like bamboo along the flowing river, he began to love thinking it would last. With hitoyo meaning both one night and the length of one bamboo joint, the poem expresses through the river bamboo a love meant to last, reproaching the other's change of heart.
Some manuscripts name Fujiwara no Tsunetada as the author and give the headnote 'Composed on love after one meeting with no more to follow.' It would then be a poem on that topic.
Pledges also appear in poems 400 and 403 in this book.

First line, 'hitoyo to wa', is a pivot word in which hitoyo means both one night and one joint, the space between the nodes of a bamboo, left in kana. It is a related word to the river bamboo in the third line.
Second line, 'itsu ka chigirishi', means when did I pledge, the particle ka forming a rhetorical question closed by the attributive of the past ki. The poem breaks after the second line.
Third line, 'kawatake no', means of the bamboo by the river, leading into nagare, flowing, in the fourth line.
Fourth line, 'nagarete to koso', means flowing on long, nagarete, in keeping with the river bamboo, meaning to go on through time. The particle koso binds with the realis shika in the final line.
Final line, 'omoisomeshika', means so I began to love, closing with the realis of the past ki and leaving a lingering 'and yet'.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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