Toki wa shimo itsu mo aramu o kokoroitaku iyuku wagimo ka midoriko o okite

時はしもいつもあらむを心痛く
い行く我妹かみどり子を置きて

Roma-ji: Toki wa shimo itsu mo aramu o kokoroitaku iyuku wagimo ka midoriko o okite
English Translation: There would be a time,
some other time, surely—yet
with my heart in pain,
you go from me, my dear one,
leaving our small child behind.
Meaning: There would surely have been another time—yet, to my heart's pain, you go away, my love, leaving our little child behind.
Commentary: Book Three Elegies 467

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Another poem with tanka composed by Yakamochi" — "Envoy"
This is the first envoy to a long poem mourning his wife. There would surely have been some other time to die, yet she has gone, leaving a small child behind—grief for her too-early death and for the child left behind. Naming the child in the last line makes the sorrow all the sharper.
This belongs to a sequence of elegies that Ōtomo no Yakamochi composed from the sixth month of summer into autumn in Tenpyō 11 (739), mourning his late concubine.
The poet, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was a son of Ōtomo no Tabito and a Nara-period official. He served as Governor of Etchū and of Inaba, among other posts, rose to Middle Counselor, and died in Enryaku 4 (785). He is thought to have been deeply involved in compiling the Man'yōshū.

First line "There would be a time": shimo is emphatic, "the time to die."
Second line "some other time, surely—yet": o is concessive.
Third line "with my heart in pain" means painfully.
Fourth line "you go from me, my dear one": i is a prefix and ka exclamatory; the sentence breaks here.
Fifth line "leaving our small child behind" has one syllable too many, placing the most painful fact last by inversion.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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