Hito mina no miramu matsura no tamashima o mizute ya ware wa koitsutsu oramu

人皆の見らむ松浦の玉島を
見ずてや我れは恋ひつつ居らむ

Roma-ji: Hito mina no miramu matsura no tamashima o mizute ya ware wa koitsutsu oramu
English Translation: All the others, now,
must be gazing at Matsura's
Tamashima shore —
shall I, who have never seen it,
go on yearning after it?
Meaning: Everyone else must be looking at Tamashima in Matsura; am I to go on longing for it without ever seeing it?
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 862

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Three poems composed later in response by a later person; the old Governor-General"
The poet asks whether he must go on longing for Tamashima in Matsura, which everyone else must be seeing, without seeing it himself. Through the frustration of being unable to go to the setting of the tale, he conveys his yearning for the girls.
The headnote reads "Three poems composed later in response by a later person," and the note "the old Governor-General" shows that Ōtomo no Tabito wrote them afterward in response to the poems of the Matsura River tale. Adopting the stance not of a character in the tale but of someone who heard of it later, he plays with the fiction.
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, "hito mina no": "all people."
Second line, "miramu Matsura no": "miramu" is an old form of "miruramu," "must be seeing now."
Third line, "Tamashima o": Tamashima, where the girls live.
Fourth line, "mizute ya ware wa": the particle "ya" is answered by "mu" in the last line, contrasting others with himself.
Fifth line, "koitsutsu oramu": "shall I go on yearning," closing in answer to "ya."
Author: Ōtomo no Tabito
Source: Manyoshu
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