Ie ni arite haha ga torimiba nagusamuru kokoro wa aramashi shinaba shinu tomo

家にありて母がとり見ば慰むる
心はあらまし死なば死ぬとも

Roma-ji: Ie ni arite haha ga torimiba nagusamuru kokoro wa aramashi shinaba shinu tomo
English Translation: If I were at home
and my mother nursed me there,
some comfort, surely,
my heart would have found in that,
even if I had to die
Meaning: If I were at home with my mother tending me, my heart would have found some comfort, even if I had to die.
Commentary: Book Five Miscellaneous Poems 889

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Six poems respectfully composed by Yamanoue no Okura, Governor of Chikuzen, in response, expressing Kumagori's feelings on his behalf, with preface"
The poem laments that had he been at home in his mother's care, his heart would have been comforted even in death. It grieves less at death itself than at being unable to die at his mother's side.
For the last line, a variant introduced as "one version says" reads "even if I died afterward." Here the main text is followed.
The preface records that Ōtomo no Kimi Kumagori, of Mashiki District in Higo, was on his way to the capital on the seventeenth day of the sixth month of Tenpyō 3, aged eighteen, as attendant to a provincial official serving as wrestling envoy, when he fell ill and died at the Takaba post station in Saeki District, Aki. On his deathbed he said that this borrowed body perishes easily and a life like foam cannot be held, but his aged parents in their hut were waiting for his return and would weep themselves blind on learning he would not come; what grieved him was not his own death but their suffering, and he composed six poems and died. Okura, speaking in Kumagori's place, wrote one long poem and five tanka.
The poet, Yamanoue no Okura, was an official who went to Tang China as a junior secretary with the embassy appointed in Taihō 1. After his return he served as Governor of Hōki and in the household of the Crown Prince, and late in the Jinki era he was posted to Tsukushi as Governor of Chikuzen. He is known for poems rooted in everyday life, on the sufferings of human existence, love for family, and poverty, written against a background of learning in Chinese classics and Buddhist scripture.

First line, "ie ni arite": six syllables, one more than the norm: "if I were at home."
Second line, "haha ga torimiba": "torimiru" means to tend or nurse, put conditionally.
Third line, "nagusamuru": "that would be comforted," modifying "kokoro" next.
Fourth line, "kokoro wa aramashi": the counterfactual "mashi": my heart would have been comforted. The poem breaks here.
Fifth line, "shinaba shinu tomo": "even if I died, let me die," closing with resignation.
Author: Yamanoue no Okura
Source: Manyoshu
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