Asamashi ya ko wa nanigoto no sama zo to yo koi seyo tote mo umarezarikeri - Kinyo Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

あさましやこは何事のさまぞとよ
恋せよとても生まれざりけり

Roma-ji: Asamashi ya ko wa nanigoto no sama zo to yo koi seyo tote mo umarezarikeri
English Translation: How shocking it is!
What in the world has come
over me like this?
It was never to be told
'go and love' that I was born
Meaning: How shocking! What in the world has become of me? I was never born to be told to fall in love.
Commentary: Book Eight Love Poems II 515

How shocking, the poet says; what in the world is this state he is in? He was never born to be told to fall in love. Appalled at himself thrown into disarray by love, and lamenting that he did not come into this world for love's sake, he expresses love's suffering in a frank, colloquial tone.
This is the closing poem of Book Eight, Love Poems II, and it brings the love section of this anthology to an end. Where the opening poem, 421, sang of love's beginning by entrusting unspoken feelings to the spring sky, this poem closes the book with the lament of one tossed about by love. The opening line asamashi ya shares its word with asamashige in poem 428 and asamashiku in poem 463, and is the same as the opening lines of poems 372 and 396 of Book Seven.
The author, Toshiyori, is Minamoto no Toshiyori. A son of the Major Counselor Minamoto no Tsunenobu, he compiled this anthology at the command of Retired Emperor Shirakawa.

First line, 'asamashi ya', means how shocking, the poem breaking after the first line with the exclamatory ya. Poems 372 and 396 of Book Seven begin with the same line.
Second line, 'ko wa nanigoto no', means what in the world is this, ko meaning this.
Third line, 'sama zo to yo', means what a state, a colloquial turn in which zo is followed by to and yo, the poem breaking after the third line.
Fourth line, 'koi seyo tote mo', means to be told go and love.
Final line, 'umarezarikeri', means I was not born for that, the negative zu followed by the exclamatory keri, closing the book with a lament of realization.
Author: Minamoto no Toshiyori
Source: Kinyo Wakashu
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