Asari suru ama no kodomo to hito wa iedo miru ni shiraenu umahito no ko to

あさりする海人の子どもと人は言へど
見るに知らえぬ貴人の子と

Roma-ji: Asari suru ama no kodomo to hito wa iedo miru ni shiraenu umahito no ko to
English Translation: Children of fisherfolk
who gather from the sea, they say,
so people tell me,
but one look was enough to know
they are daughters of the noble
Meaning: People say you are fishermen's children who gather what the sea provides, yet one look told me you are daughters of a noble house.
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 853

Headnote: "Preface on an excursion to the Matsura River"
The speaker tells the girls that though people call them fishermen's children, one look showed they were of noble birth. Responding to the girls' modest claim in the preface to be fishermen's daughters, he praises their refinement.
This belongs to the sequence that begins with "Preface on an Excursion to the Matsura River." The preface tells how the author, wandering by the pools of Tamashima in Matsura, met some girls fishing whose beauty was like that of immortal maidens; they answered that they were fishermen's children with neither village nor home, yet asked to be joined with him until old age. It is a fictional tale that borrows the conceits of the Chinese romance of the immortals, You xian ku. It is most commonly attributed to Ōtomo no Tabito, though some ascribe it to Yamanoue no Okura.
The poet, Ōtomo no Tabito, was the son of the Major Counselor Ōtomo no Yasumaro and the father of Ōtomo no Yakamochi. Late in the Jinki era he went down to Tsukushi as Governor-General of Dazaifu, returned to the capital in Tenpyō 2 as Major Counselor, and died the following year. Versed in Chinese letters and Daoist thought, he formed a literary circle at Dazaifu with Yamanoue no Okura and others, known as the Tsukushi poetic circle.

First line, "asari suru": gathering fish and shellfish, the girls' way of life.
Second line, "ama no kodomo to": "children of fisherfolk," taking up what the girls said of themselves in the preface.
Third line, "hito wa iedo": adversative, "though people say so."
Fourth line, "miru ni shiraenu": "shirae" means to become evident, and "nu" marks completion: one look made it clear. The poem breaks here.
Fifth line, "umahito no ko to": "that you are children of the noble," the inversion leaving their refinement for last. The girls' reply, 854, answers that their home lies upstream at Tamashima.
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito (attributed)
Source: Manyoshu
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