Iza kodomo haya hi no moto e ōtomo no mitsu no hamamatsu machikoinuran

English Translation

Come now, my good men,
back to Japan with all speed!
At Ōtomo,
the pines along Mitsu's strand
must be pining for our return.

Meaning

Come, my companions, let us hurry home to Japan. The pines on the shore of Mitsu in Ōtomo must be waiting and longing for us.

Commentary

Book Ten Travel Poems 898

Headnote: "Composed in China."
This is the third of a sequence of travel poems from the age of the Man'yōshū. Urging his companions to hurry home, the speaker imagines the pines of Mitsu in Ōtomo longing for their return. According to the headnote, the poem was composed in China.
The author, Yamanoue no Okura, was an official and poet of the Nara period. He went to Tang China with an embassy and later served as governor of Chikuzen. He is known as the author of the Dialogue on Poverty.
The scene is his stay in China as a member of the embassy, and the place is China.
The direct occasion is his longing for home while in China.
The poem is included in Book One of the Man'yōshū as a poem Okura composed while in China, thinking of his homeland.

The first line, "iza kodomo," is a call: "come now, my men." "Kodomo" is a familiar word for those below one, here addressed to his fellow travelers.
The second line, "haya hi no moto e," means "quickly, to Japan." From the soil of China he names his homeland and presses for return. After the domestic journeys of the preceding poems, a journey from beyond the sea is set here.
The third line, "ōtomo no," is a pillow word for Mitsu. Ōtomo is an old name for the Naniwa area.
The fourth line, "mitsu no hamamatsu," is the pines on the shore of Mitsu, the port of Naniwa. The sound of "matsu," "pine," draws out the next word, "machi," "waiting."
The last line, "machikoinuran," means "must be waiting and longing." The pines are treated as if they were people, and the homeland is imagined as waiting for the travelers. Where "imo ni koi" in the preceding poem longs from the traveler's side, here it is the homeland that longs, and the direction of longing is reversed.

Author

Yamanoue no Okura

Source

Shin Kokin Wakashu

Other