Mikasayama nobe yu yuku michi kokidaku mo arenikeru kamo hisa ni aranaku ni

御笠山野辺ゆ行く道こきだくも
荒れにけるかも久にあらなくに

Roma-ji: Mikasayama nobe yu yuku michi kokidaku mo arenikeru kamo hisa ni aranaku ni
English Translation: On Mount Mikasa,
the path that runs through the fields,
how it has grown wild,
gone to ruin so completely—
though it has not been so long.
Meaning: How utterly the path across the fields of Mount Mikasa has fallen to ruin, though so little time has passed.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 234

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems composed in the ninth month, autumn, of the first year of Reiki, the year kinoto-u, at the time of the death of Prince Shiki, a poem in another text reads"
The poem laments that the path through the fields at Mount Mikasa has fallen so into ruin though little time has passed; it is the final poem of Book Two of the Man'yōshū.
These are elegies on the death of Prince Shiki in the ninth month of the first year of Reiki (715). The long poem 230 mourns him by asking whether the funeral torches burning on Mount Takamato are a fire set to burn the fields. Prince Shiki was a son of Emperor Tenji and the father of the later Emperor Kōnin. This poem is appended as one transmitted in another text and appears to be a different form of 232.
The author is not named. Some take it, like 232, to be by Kasa no Kanamura, but this is not settled.
Whereas 85, the book's opening poem, laments the length of waiting with "the days have grown long," this final poem laments how much has changed in a short time with "though it has not been so long," so that the opening and close of the book answer each other on the length and brevity of time.

The first line, "mikasayama," is the same first line as 232.
In the second line, "nobe yu yuku michi," yu marks the route: the road that runs through the fields. In 232 it reads "nobe yuku michi wa."
The third line, "kokidaku mo," means "to such an extent."
In the fourth line, "arenikeru kamo," nikeri marks completion and realization and kamo is exclamatory: how it has fallen to ruin. The poem pauses here. Against the questioning "shigeku aretaru ka" of 232, this poem asserts its lament outright.
The final line, "hisa ni aranaku ni," means "though it has not been long," the same as the final line of 232. Book Two closes with these words.
Source: Manyoshu
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