Au koto wa yume bakari nite yaminishi o sa koso mishika to hito ni kataru na - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

逢ふことは夢ばかりにてやみにしを
さこそ見しかと人に語るな

Roma-ji: Au koto wa yume bakari nite yaminishi o sa koso mishika to hito ni kataru na
English Translation: Our meeting was
no more than a dream, and ended,
fading into dark:
do not tell others we were
as close as that, I beg you
Meaning: Our meeting was no more than a dream and ended so; do not go telling others that we were so close.
Commentary: Book Eight Love Poems II 445

Their meeting ended as fleetingly as a dream, so the poet asks the other not to tell people that they were deeply bound. Fearing that a brief love will be exaggerated and spread about, the poem expresses the wish to avoid rumor.
Poem 485 in this book also sings of telling others what one saw in a dream, forming a pair with this poem in its pairing of dreams and talk.

First line, 'au koto wa', means meeting my beloved.
Second line, 'yume bakari nite', means as slight as a dream, implying as fleeting as a dream.
Third line, 'yaminishi o', is a pivot word in which yami means both coming to an end and darkness, tied to the dream in the second line, left in kana. The perfective nu and the past ki are followed by the concessive o.
Fourth line, 'sa koso mishika to', means that we were bound so deeply, the particle koso answered by shika, the perfective form of the past ki.
Final line, 'hito ni kataru na', means do not tell others, closing with the prohibitive na.
Author: Unknown Poet
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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