Fusumaji o hikide no yama ni imo o okite yamaji omou ni ikeru tomo nashi

衾道を引手の山に妹を置きて
山道思ふに生けるともなし

Roma-ji: Fusumaji o hikide no yama ni imo o okite yamaji omou ni ikeru tomo nashi
English Translation: On Hikide Hill,
along the Fusuma road,
I have left my wife,
and thinking of the mountain path,
I feel I am no longer alive.
Meaning: Having left my wife on Hikide Hill, when I think of that mountain path I no longer feel that I am alive.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 215

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, three short poems of the poem in another text"
Having buried his wife on Hikide Hill, he feels no longer alive when he thinks of that mountain path; the poem voices the deep emptiness of one left behind.
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 three short poems appended to 213, the long poem from another text. It differs from 212 in having "yamaji omou ni" in place of "yamaji o yukeba" in the fourth line and "ikeru tomo nashi" in the final line.
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," said to be either a pillow word for Hikide or a place-name, is the same first line as 212.
The second line, "hikide no yama ni," means "on the Yamato hill where my 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 omou ni," means "when I think of the mountain path." Where "yamaji o yukeba" in 212 describes actually walking the path, here the path is imagined in his heart.
The final line, "ikeru tomo nashi," means "I have no sense of being alive," the same as the final line of 227 in this book.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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