Fusumaji o hikide no yama ni imo o okite yamaji o yukeba ikeri tomo nashi

衾道を引手の山に妹を置きて
山道を行けば生けりともなし

Roma-ji: Fusumaji o hikide no yama ni imo o okite yamaji o yukeba ikeri tomo nashi
English Translation: On Hikide Hill,
along the Fusuma road,
I have left my wife,
and walking the mountain path,
I feel I am no longer alive.
Meaning: Having left my wife on Hikide Hill, as I walk the mountain path I no longer feel that I am alive.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 212

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems composed by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro, weeping tears of blood in grief, after the death of his wife, two short poems"
Having buried his wife on Hikide Hill and walking back alone down the mountain path, he feels as though he is not alive; the poem conveys the emptiness after the burial.
These elegies, composed by Hitomaro after his wife's death in grief so deep that he wept tears of blood, are known as the poems of tearful lament. Two short poems are appended to each of two long poems, and a long poem with three short poems from another text is recorded as well. The first long poem, 207, mourns a wife in Karu whom he had loved in secret; the second, 210, mourns a wife who died leaving a small child. This is the second of the two short poems appended to 210. A version from another text, with the fourth line "yamaji omou ni," appears as 215.
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.

The first line, "fusumaji o," is said to be either a pillow word for Hikide or a place-name.
In the second line, "hikide no yama ni," Hikide Hill is a mountain in Yamato where his wife was buried.
The third line, "imo o okite," means "having laid my wife to rest," and is hypermetric, with six syllables.
The fourth line, "yamaji o yukeba," means "as I go along the mountain path," showing his lonely way home.
The final line, "ikeri tomo nashi," means "I have no sense of being alive." The final line of 227 in this book, "ikeru tomo nashi," uses the same expression, both voicing the emptiness of one left behind.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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