classic waka stream

み狩する狩場の小野の楢柴の
なれはまさらで恋ぞまされる
Roma-ji

Mikari suru kariba no ono no narashiba no nare wa masarade koi zo masareru

English Translation
Where the royal hunt
sweeps the fields of the hunting grounds,
oak scrub grows thick:
not our closeness has grown more,
but only my love for you
Meaning
Like the oak scrub on the moors of the royal hunting grounds, our closeness never grows, and only my longing for you grows the more.
Commentary
Book Eleven Love Poems I 1050

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Topic unknown."
This is the third poem of the sequence on love that cannot meet, sung through places and things. Through the oak scrub of the hunting moors, the speaker sings that familiarity does not grow, only longing. The headnote gives no topic, and the circumstances of composition are not recorded.
The author, "Hitomaro," is Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. A poet of the Asuka period, he served as a court poet under Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu and left many poems in the Man'yōshū. Later ages revered him as the saint of poetry.
A poem of the same sense appears in the Man'yōshū; in the Shin Kokinshū it is included as a poem by Hitomaro.

In the first line, "mi" is an honorific prefix: where the hunt is held.
In the second line, "ono" means moorland, "o" being a prefix.
In the third line, "narashiba" is a thicket of young oak branches. The first three lines form a preface that leads by repeated sound to "nare."
The fourth line, "nare wa masarade," means "our closeness does not grow."
In the last line, the emphatic "zo" is resolved by "ru." The same verb appears negated in "masarade" and affirmed in "masareru," showing only longing growing while no meeting comes. After Ise's reproach in the preceding poem, a poem of longing that grows without meeting is placed here.
Author
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source
Shin Kokin Wakashu
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