Practise the thinking. Keep the judgement.
逢ひみての
Fujiwara no Atsutada · 権中納言敦忠
逢ひみての
後の心に
くらぶれば
昔はものを
思はざりけり
Historical kana
あひみての
のちのこころに
くらぶれば
むかしはものを
おもはざりけり
Original English translation
Compared with my heart after we met, in the old days I had hardly known what longing was.
History and context
Atsutada’s poem belongs to the Shūishū love sequence. It follows a familiar courtly theme: an encounter does not resolve desire but changes the intensity of later separation.
Imagery and wordplay
The present rewrites the past. Earlier longing now seems too slight to deserve the name.
Shūishū · 拾遺集恋二710
Japanese text and historical kana follow the linked Wikisource transcription. Classical poems can have variant spellings and wording in different anthologies. The source anthology reference identifies the version represented in this collection, not necessarily its earliest surviving text. English prose translations and reading notes are original interpretations; some wordplay permits more than one reading.