Kyō tote ya isona tsumuran iseshima ya ichishi no ura no ama no otomego - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

今日とてや磯菜摘むらん伊勢島や
一志の浦の海人の乙女子

Roma-ji: Kyō tote ya isona tsumuran iseshima ya ichishi no ura no ama no otomego
English Translation: Is it because today
they are gathering shore greens?
Ah, the land of Ise—
at the bay of Ichishi,
the young girls of the fisherfolk.
Meaning: Is it because today is the day, that they gather greens along the shore? The fisher girls of Ichishi Bay in the land of Ise.
Commentary: Book Seventeen Miscellaneous Poems II 1612

Headnote: "On young greens, from a hundred-poem sequence presented to the Grand Shrine."
This is the fourth poem of the sequence on bays of the provinces. Because today is the day for gathering young greens, the poet wonders whether the fisher girls of Ichishi Bay in Ise are gathering shore greens. According to the headnote, it was a poem on young greens from a hundred-poem sequence presented to the Grand Shrine of Ise.
The author, "Kōtaigōgū no Daibu Shunzei," was a son of Fujiwara no Toshitada and the father of Teika. He compiled the Senzaishū.
The Grand Shrine is the Ise Shrine. Gathering young greens was a custom of going into the fields at the start of the new year to pick young greens and eat them in prayer for long life. In this poem, in place of greens of the fields, fisher girls of the bay gather shore greens.
Ichishi Bay lies on the coast of Ichishi District in Ise Province, around present-day Tsu, Mie Prefecture.

The first line, "kyō tote ya," means "because today is the day," referring to the day of gathering young greens. "Ya" is an interrogative particle.
The second line, "isona tsumuran," means "are they gathering shore greens?" The particle "ya" is closed by the attributive form of "ran," and the poem breaks after the second line.
The third line, "iseshima ya," means "in the land of Ise." "Ya" is an exclamatory interjectory particle that strongly marks the place.
The fourth line, "ichishi no ura no," means "of Ichishi Bay" in Ise.
The last line, "ama no otomego," ends in a noun. Through inversion, those who gather the shore greens are placed at the close. Against the fisherfolk's fires and smoke of the earlier poems, here the figures of fisher girls are drawn.
Author: Fujiwara no Shunzei
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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