Kokoro kara tsukinaki koi o sezariseba awade yami ni wa madowazaramashi - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

心からつきなき恋をせざりせば
逢はでやみにはまどはざらまし

Roma-ji: Kokoro kara tsukinaki koi o sezariseba awade yami ni wa madowazaramashi
English Translation: Had I not myself
set my heart on this love
moonless, hopeless,
I would not now be lost in dark,
ending without meeting you
Meaning: Had I not, of my own will, fallen into this moonless, hopeless love, I would not now be lost in the darkness of a love that ends without our meeting.
Commentary: Book Eight Love Poems II 512

Had the poet not, of his own will, fallen into a love without hope, a love as dark as a moonless night, he would not be wandering in the darkness of a love that ends without meeting. Punning on tsukinashi, without any hold and without a moon, and on yami, ending and darkness, the poem laments the bewilderment of a love brought on oneself.

First line, 'kokoro kara', means of my own heart, that is, brought on myself.
Second line, 'tsukinaki koi o', is a pivot word in which tsuki means both having no hold and there being no moon, left in kana. The absence of the moon is related to the darkness in the fourth line.
Third line, 'sezariseba', means had I not, se, the irrealis of the past ki, followed by ba forming a contrary-to-fact condition.
Fourth line, 'awade yami ni wa', is a pivot word in which yami means both a love ending without meeting and darkness, left in kana. With the particle wa it means in the darkness of ending without meeting.
Final line, 'madowazaramashi', means I would not wander lost, using the contrary-to-fact mashi in answer to sezariseba in the third line.
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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