Waga seko wa izuku yukuramu okitsumo no nabari no yama o kyō ka koyuramu

我が背子はいづく行くらむ沖つ藻の
名張の山を今日か越ゆらむ

Roma-ji: Waga seko wa izuku yukuramu okitsumo no nabari no yama o kyō ka koyuramu
English Translation: Where now is my lord,
where, I wonder, does he go;
hidden like sea-weed,
the mountain of Nabari,
is he crossing it today
Meaning: Where is my husband traveling now, I wonder? Is he crossing the mountains of Nabari today?
Commentary: Book Four Love Poems 511

Headnote: "A poem composed by the wife of Lord Taima no Maro at the time of the imperial progress to the province of Ise"
Left at home, a wife thinks of her husband traveling in the emperor's train to Ise. Where can he be now, she wonders; is he crossing the mountains of Nabari today? Her thoughts follow him along the road. The same poem appears in Book One as 43, attributed to "the wife of Taima no Mahito Maro," and is dated to Empress Jitō's progress to Ise.
Poem 500 in this book is likewise the thought of a wife at home for a husband gone to Ise, and poems of like conception echo each other within the book.
The author, the wife of Taima no Maro, is a woman of whom little is known. Her husband is identified as Taima no Mahito Maro; taifu is a respectful term for officials of the fifth rank and above.

First line, "Where now is my lord," calls to mind the husband away on his journey.
Second line, "where, I wonder, does he go," uses the present conjectural ramu: where might he be going now? The poem breaks after this line.
Third line, "hidden like sea-weed," is okitsumo no, a pillow word for Nabari, since seaweed of the offing lies hidden under water; nabaru is an old word meaning to hide, and the character used in the original shows this.
Fourth line, "the mountain of Nabari," names a mountain at Nabari in Iga, on the road from Yamato to Ise.
Fifth line, "is he crossing it today," uses the questioning ka and the attributive of ramu: might he be crossing today? It echoes ramu in the second line and follows her husband along his way.
Author: The Wife of Taima no Maro
Source: Manyoshu
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