Ito semete koishiki toki wa mubatama no yoru no koromo o kaeshite zo kiru - Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

いとせめて恋しき時はむばたまの
夜の衣を返してぞ着る

Roma-ji: Ito semete koishiki toki wa mubatama no yoru no koromo o kaeshite zo kiru
English Translation: When my love for him
has grown too much to bear,
in the jet-black night
the garment that I sleep in
I turn inside out and wear.
Meaning: When I long for him so desperately that I can hardly bear it, I wear my nightclothes turned inside out as I sleep.
Commentary: Book Twelve Love Poems II 554

Headnote: "Topic unknown"
The poet says that when her longing becomes unbearable, she wears her nightclothes inside out. Drawing on the belief of the time that wearing one's night garment reversed brought the beloved into one's dreams, she expresses through a concrete gesture her earnest wish to meet him at least in a dream. Following the joy of meeting in a dream and the heart that relies on dreams, it moves on to the act of summoning a dream herself; it is the third of Komachi's sequence of dream poems.
Ono no Komachi was a poet of the early Heian period, counted among the Six Poetic Immortals and the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals. She is said to have served at court around the reign of Emperor Ninmyō, but much about her origins and life is uncertain.
The main text of the third line reads "mubatama no," which does not agree with the reading line "ubatama no." The main text is followed here.

First line, "ito semete": ito expresses intensity and semete means earnestly or desperately, strongly introducing a longing that has reached its limit.
Second line, "koishiki toki wa": the particle wa singles out such times as a condition.
Third line, "mubatama no": a pillow word modifying "night" or "black," also found as nubatama no or ubatama no. It adds the depth of the night's darkness and leads into the fourth line.
Fourth line, "yoru no koromo o": the night garment is the robe worn for sleep. There was a belief that wearing it inside out brought the beloved into one's dreams.
Fifth line, "kaeshite zo kiru": the binding particle zo is resolved by the attributive kiru, emphasizing the act of wearing it reversed. Whereas the two preceding poems wait passively for dreams, here she tries to summon one herself, and the feeling deepens across the sequence.
Author: Ono no Komachi
Source: Kokin Wakashu
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