Tomoshibi no Akashi ōto ni iramu hi ya kogiwakarenamu ie no atari mizu

燈火の明石大門に入らむ日や
漕ぎ別れなむ家のあたり見ず

Roma-ji: Tomoshibi no Akashi ōto ni iramu hi ya kogiwakarenamu ie no atari mizu
English Translation: Bright as a lamp's flame,
on the day we enter
the great strait of Akashi,
shall we row away from home,
not seeing where it lies?
Meaning: On the day we enter the great strait of Akashi, shall we row off and leave it all behind, without a glimpse of the place where my home lies?
Commentary: Book Three Miscellaneous Poems 254

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Eight travel poems by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro"
This is the sixth of the eight travel poems. Once a westbound boat enters the Akashi strait, the mountains of Yamato vanish from sight. At Akashi, the border between the home provinces and the world beyond, the poem sings the loneliness of parting from home. The next poem, looking back toward the mountains of Yamato from the Akashi strait on the return voyage, forms a pair with it.
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 "Bright as a lamp's flame" is a pillow word for Akashi ("bright").
Second line "the great strait of Akashi": ōto means a great strait, the Akashi Strait—the same place as "from the strait of Akashi" in the next poem's fourth line.
Third line "on the day we enter": mu is conjectural and ya an interrogative binding particle, concluded by namu in the fourth line.
Fourth line "shall we row away": na is the perfective nu and mu conjecture—"shall we end up rowing apart?"—completing the construction begun with ya.
Fifth line "not seeing where it lies" has one syllable too many, ending in the sadness of parting. Its mizu ("not seeing") contrasts with miyu ("comes in sight") in the next poem's last line.
Author: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Source: Manyoshu
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