衣手の別かる今夜ゆ妹も我れも
いたく恋ひむな逢ふよしをなみ
いたく恋ひむな逢ふよしをなみ
- Roma-ji
-
Koromode no wakaru koyoi yu imo mo are mo itaku koimu na au yoshi o nami
- English Translation
-
As our sleeves divide,
from this night when we must part,
you, my love, and I
will both long so bitterly,
having no way now to meet
- Meaning
- From this night when our sleeves part and we separate, you and I will both long for each other bitterly, for we will have no way to meet.
- Commentary
-
Book Four Love Poems 508
Headnote: "A poem by the Novice Mikata"
On the night of parting, the poet says that from tonight both his wife and he will long for each other bitterly, for they will have no way to meet. He renders the parting of two who slept with sleeves entwined as koromode no wakaru, "sleeves dividing," and portrays the ache of separation as a feeling both share.
The author, the Novice Mikata, lived in the early Nara period; one theory identifies him with Yamada no Fubito Mikata, who later returned to lay life. Shami means a novice monk newly entered into orders.
First line, "As our sleeves divide," is koromode no, a pillow word for wakaru, "to part," from the parting of sleeves of those who shared a bed.
Second line, "from this night when we must part," uses yu, an old particle of origin: from tonight, when we part.
Third line, "you, my love, and I," runs to six syllables and sets both of them side by side, making longing something the two share.
Fourth line, "will both long so bitterly," uses the conjectural mu and the exclamatory na: how bitterly we shall long. The poem breaks after this line.
Fifth line, "having no way now to meet," means because there is no means of meeting; the construction o ... mi gives a cause, placed last by inversion.
- Author
- Novice Mikata
- Source
- Manyoshu
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