Shikitae no sode kaeshi kimi tamadare no ochino sugiyuku mata mo awame ya mo

敷栲の袖交へし君玉垂の
越智野過ぎ行くまたも逢はめやも

Roma-ji: Shikitae no sode kaeshi kimi tamadare no ochino sugiyuku mata mo awame ya mo
English Translation: You with whom I lay,
our sleeves of fine cloth entwined,
past the jewel-strung
fields of Ochi you have gone—
shall we ever meet again?
Meaning: You with whom I lay, our sleeves entwined, have passed beyond the fields of Ochi. Shall we ever meet again? Never again.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 195

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem presented by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro to Princess Hatsusebe and Prince Osakabe, one envoy"
The poem voices the grief of a wife left behind: the husband with whom she lay, their sleeves entwined, has passed beyond the fields of Ochi, and she will never see him again.
According to the headnote, this is the envoy to 194, the long poem Hitomaro presented to Princess Hatsusebe and Prince Osakabe. A left note says that another text calls it a poem presented to Princess Hatsusebe when Prince Kawashima was buried at the fields of Ochi, and that the Nihon shoki records Prince Kawashima's death in the ninth month of the fifth year of Shuchō. It is composed from the standpoint of Princess Hatsusebe, the prince's wife.
The author, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active in the reigns of Empress Jitō and Emperor Monmu. A master of the long poem and the elegy, he is the representative poet of the Man'yōshū and was later revered as the Saint of Poetry.
A note records a variant giving the fourth line as "ochino ni suginu." Here the main text is followed.

The first line, "shikitae no," from the cloth spread on a bed, is a pillow word for sode, "sleeve."
The second line, "sode kaeshi kimi," means "you with whom I exchanged sleeves," that is, lay together, referring to the late Prince Kawashima.
The third line, "tamadare no," means jewels strung on a cord and hanging down; since the word for cord, o, echoes the name, it is a pillow word for Ochi.
The fourth line, "ochino sugiyuku," means "passes on beyond the fields of Ochi," overlaying the funeral procession moving toward the grave with departure from this world. The poem pauses here.
In the final line, "mata mo awame ya mo," me is the perfective form of mu and ya mo is rhetorical: shall we meet again? No, never.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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