荒波に寄り来る玉を枕に置き
我れここにありと誰れか告げなむ
我れここにありと誰れか告げなむ
- Roma-ji
-
Aranami ni yorikuru tama o makura ni oki ware koko ni ari to tare ka tsugenamu
- English Translation
-
Beside my pillow
I have set the jewels washed in
by the raging waves—
"Here I am," and who will go
and tell her that I lie here?
- Meaning
- I have laid beside my pillow the jewels the rough waves bring ashore—but who will go and tell her that I am lying here?
- Commentary
-
Book Two Elegies 226
Headnote: "A poem by Tajihi no Mahito (his personal name is missing), composed in reply as though in the heart of Kakinomoto no Asomi Hitomaro"
Speaking in the place of the dead Hitomaro, the poet asks who will go and tell his wife that he lies here by the rough sea, the jewels washed ashore set beside his pillow.
According to the headnote, Tajihi no Mahito, whose personal name is missing, composed this in reply to the poems of Hitomaro's wife, Yosami no Otome, imagining himself in Hitomaro's heart. It suggests that the poems on Hitomaro's death were shaped by later hands into a kind of story.
The author, Tajihi no Mahito, is a man whose personal name is missing and has not come down to us. The Tajihi clan descended from the imperial line, and Mahito was its hereditary title.
The first line, "aranami ni," means "by the rough waves."
In the second line, "yorikuru tama o," tama means beautiful stones or shells: those washed in by the waves.
The third line, "makura ni oki," means "setting them by my pillow," and is hypermetric, with six syllables.
The fourth line, "ware koko ni ari to," means "that I am here," and is hypermetric, with eight syllables.
In the final line, "tare ka tsugenamu," ka is an interrogative binding particle concluding in namu: who will tell her? It laments the loneliness of having no one to carry word.
- Author
- Tajihi no Mahito
- Source
- Manyoshu
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