Sasanami no shigatsu no kora ga makariji no kawase no michi o mireba sabushi mo

楽浪の志賀津の子らが罷り道の
川瀬の道を見れば寂しも

Roma-ji: Sasanami no shigatsu no kora ga makariji no kawase no michi o mireba sabushi mo
English Translation: At Sasanami,
the path by which the maiden
of Shiga harbor passed
along the river's shallows—
when I see it, how lonely!
Meaning: When I look at the path along the river shallows by which the maiden of Shiga harbor in Sasanami departed from this world, how lonely it seems!
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 218

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems composed by Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro at the time of the death of the palace attendant from Kibitsu, two short poems"
Mourning the attendant's death, he says how lonely it is to see the river path by which the maiden of Shiga harbor departed this world.
These are elegies Kakinomoto no Hitomaro composed at the death of the palace attendant from Kibitsu, two short poems appended to the long poem 217. She was an attendant who came to serve at court from the province of Kibi, and the long poem speaks of her having had a husband. She seems to have died at the waterside of Shiga harbor, and some take it that she drowned herself. This is the first of those two short poems.
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 second line as "shiga no tsu no ko ga." Here the main text is followed.

The first line, "sasanami no," names the region along the southwest shore of Lake Biwa. Poem 154 by Lady Ishikawa and 206 by Okisome no Azumahito in this book begin with the same line.
In the second line, "shigatsu no kora ga," Shigatsu is the harbor of Shiga, and kora is an affectionate word for a young woman, here the attendant from Kibitsu. Together with "shiga no karasaki" in 152 of this book, the waterside of Shiga becomes a stage for elegy.
The third line, "makariji no," means "of the road by which she left this world."
The fourth line, "kawase no michi o," means "the path along the river shallows," taken as either the funeral road or the path to the place where she drowned herself.
In the final line, "mireba sabushi mo," mo is exclamatory: when I see it, how lonely.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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