Aratae no Fujie no ura ni suzuki tsuru ama to ka miramu tabi yuku ware o

荒栲の藤江の浦に鱸釣る
海人とか見らむ旅行く我れを

Roma-ji: Aratae no Fujie no ura ni suzuki tsuru ama to ka miramu tabi yuku ware o
English Translation: Of coarse wisteria cloth,
in the bay of Fujie,
fishing for sea bass—
is that how they see me, as
a fisherman, me who travels?
Meaning: Do they take me for a fisherman catching sea bass in the bay of Fujie—I who am only passing through on my journey?
Commentary: Book Three Miscellaneous Poems 252

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Eight travel poems by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro"
This is the fourth of the eight travel poems. The traveler wonders whether, in the eyes of the locals, he looks like a fisherman catching sea bass in the bay of Fujie. The unease and self-mockery of a capital official taken for a man of the shore seep through. A left note gives the variant "Of white cloth, in the bay of Fujie, fishing."
The eight travel poems form a sequence tracing, place by place, a sea voyage west from Naniwa through the Inland Sea and back toward Yamato. The first of them, poem 249, has a lower half whose reading is unresolved.
The poet, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, was a court poet active from the reign of Jitō to that of Monmu. Master of both long and short poems, he was later revered as the "Saint of Poetry." His rank was low, and much of his life remains obscure.

First line "Of coarse wisteria cloth": aratae, rough cloth woven from wisteria fiber, is a pillow word for fuji. The variant reads "white cloth."
Second line "in the bay of Fujie": a shore in Harima, around today's Fujie in Akashi, Hyōgo.
Third line "fishing for sea bass" gives concrete shape to the "fisherman" that follows.
Fourth line "is that how they see me": ka is an interrogative binding particle and ramu, the attributive of present conjecture, completes the construction. The sentence breaks here.
Fifth line "me who travels" places the object last in inversion, bringing forward the figure of the traveler himself.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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