Kasugano ni awa makeriseba shishimachi ni tsugite yukamashi o yashiro shi urameshi

春日野に粟蒔けりせば鹿待ちに
継ぎて行かましを社し恨めし

Roma-ji: Kasugano ni awa makeriseba shishimachi ni tsugite yukamashi o yashiro shi urameshi
English Translation: If on Kasuga's fields
you had indeed sown millet,
waiting for the deer
I would go there without fail—
how I hate that shrine of yours!
Meaning: If you had sown millet on the fields of Kasuga, I would go there again and again to wait for the deer—how I resent that shrine!
Commentary: Book Three Allegorical Poems 405

Headnote: "A further poem sent by Saeki no Sukune Akamaro"
This poem belongs to the section of Allegorical Poems in Book Three. Saeki no Akamaro sends another poem in answer to the young woman's reply. If millet were sown on the fields of Kasuga, he would go there constantly to wait for the deer—taking up her "millet," he pleads that he would come any time if she would meet him, and laments that the shrine stands in the way. Answering with the very words of her poem, it shows the art of poetic exchange.
The exchange between Saeki no Akamaro and a young woman is a sequence in which a married man's courtship and the woman's refusal are expressed through the shrine and the millet of Kasuga.
The poet, Saeki no Akamaro, was an official of the Nara period, but little is known of him.

First line "If on Kasuga's fields" takes up the fourth line of the preceding poem.
Second line "you had indeed sown millet": ri is continuative and seba a counterfactual condition; awa again puns on "meeting."
Third line "waiting for the deer": shishi are game animals; he would wait for the deer that come to raid the millet.
Fourth line "I would go there without fail": tsugite means continually and mashi is counterfactual. The line has one syllable too many, and the sentence breaks here.
Fifth line "how I hate that shrine of yours": shi is emphatic, answering the "shrine" of the preceding poem.
Author: Saeki no Akamaro
Source: Manyoshu
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