Wasuregusa waga himo ni tsuku Kaguyama no furinishi sato o wasuremu ga tame

忘れ草我が紐に付く香具山の
古りにし里を忘れむがため

Roma-ji: Wasuregusa waga himo ni tsuku Kaguyama no furinishi sato o wasuremu ga tame
English Translation: Forget-me grass I
fasten to the cord of my robe—
of Mount Kagu,
the village of long ago,
so I may forget it now.
Meaning: I fasten forgetting-grass to the cord of my robe, so that I may forget the old village by Mount Kagu.
Commentary: Book Three Miscellaneous Poems 334

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Five poems by the Governor-General Lord Ōtomo"
This is the fourth of the five poems of the Governor-General Lord Ōtomo. Attaching to his robe the "forgetting grass," said to make one forget sorrow when worn, he tries to forget his swelling longing for home. The very effort to forget reveals how deep the longing is. Taking up "the village of long ago" from the preceding poem, it makes clear that the village lay at the foot of Mount Kagu.
The five poems of the Governor-General Lord Ōtomo form a sequence longing for the Nara capital and for his home, placed after the poems of Ono no Oyu and Ōtomo no Yotsuna.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was a son of Ōtomo no Yasumaro. He served as Middle Counselor and Governor-General of Dazaifu before rising to Great Counselor, and died in Tenpyō 3 (731). Steeped in Chinese letters, he was at the center of a poetic circle with Yamanoue no Okura and others while serving in Tsukushi.

First line "Forget-me grass": wasuregusa is the day lily, believed to banish care when worn.
Second line "I fasten to the cord of my robe"; the sentence breaks here.
Third line "of Mount Kagu": one of the three mountains of Yamato, at whose foot lay the old village.
Fourth line "the village of long ago" repeats the phrase from the preceding poem.
Fifth line "so I may forget it now" gives by inversion the reason for wearing the grass.
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito
Source: Manyoshu
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