Hitogoto no shigeki kono koro tama naraba te ni makimochite koizu aramashi o

人言の繁きこのころ玉ならば
手に巻き持ちて恋ひずあらましを

Roma-ji: Hitogoto no shigeki kono koro tama naraba te ni makimochite koizu aramashi o
English Translation: Now that people's talk
is so thick about us both,
if you were a gem,
wound about my wrist I'd hold you,
and be free of longing so.
Meaning: These days, with people's gossip so thick, if only you were a jewel—I would wind you about my wrist and never need to long for you.
Commentary: Book Three Elegies 436

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Four poems composed in grief by Kawabe no Miyahito on seeing the body of a beautiful woman in the pine grove of Himeshima in Wadō 4, the year kanoto-i"
This is the third of Kawabe no Miyahito's four poems. With people's gossip so thick these days, if only the beloved were a jewel, he could always wear her on his wrist. Though placed in a sequence of elegies, it has the air of a love poem, and it is also read as imagining, on the dead girl's behalf, a love she was troubled by because of rumor.
Kawabe no Miyahito's four poems form a sequence composed in deep grief upon seeing the body of a young woman in the pine grove of Himeshima in Settsu in Wadō 4 (711). Himeshima is thought to be in present-day Nishiyodogawa Ward, Osaka. The left note to the fourth poem says that the date, the place, and the author's name have already appeared earlier (meaning poems 228 and 229 of Book Two), but since the wording differs and it is hard to tell which is right, the poems are recorded here again.
The poet, Kawabe no Miyahito, lived in the early Nara period, but little is known of him.

First line "Now that people's talk": hitogoto is the gossip of others.
Second line "is so thick about us both" means rumors are rife these days.
Third line "if you were a gem" is a condition.
Fourth line "wound about my wrist I'd hold you" draws on the custom of winding jewels about the wrist.
Fifth line "and be free of longing so": mashi is counterfactual and o exclamatory.
Author: Kawabe no Miyahito
Source: Manyoshu
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