Tamashima no kono kawakami ni ie wa aredo kimi o yasashimi arawasazu ariki

玉島のこの川上に家はあれど
君をやさしみあらはさずありき

Roma-ji: Tamashima no kono kawakami ni ie wa aredo kimi o yasashimi arawasazu ariki
English Translation: Here at Tamashima,
upstream along this river,
our home is, and yet,
being so abashed before you,
we did not reveal it then
Meaning: Our home lies upstream on this river at Tamashima, but we were too shy before you to tell you so.
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 854

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "They answered in verse, saying"
The girls answer that their home is upstream on the Tamashima River, but they were too bashful before him to say so. Having claimed in the preface to have neither village nor home, they now confess they have one, moving the tale toward an exchange of love.
The poem is presented as spoken by the girls within the tale, but it is the work of the tale's author.
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, "Tamashima no": the area of the Tamashima River in Matsura District.
Second line, "kono kawakami ni": "upstream on this river," where their home lies.
Third line, "ie wa aredo": "though we have a home," retracting what they said in the preface.
Fourth line, "kimi o yasashimi": "yasashi" means painfully shy, and "mi" gives the reason: because we were abashed before you.
Fifth line, "arawasazu ariki": "ki" marks the past: we did not reveal it, a confession that closes the poem.
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito (attributed)
Source: Manyoshu
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