Ōsaki no kami no obama wa sebakedomo momofunabito mo sugu to iwanaku ni

大崎の神の小浜は狭けども
百舟人も過ぐと言はなくに

Roma-ji: Ōsaki no kami no obama wa sebakedomo momofunabito mo sugu to iwanaku ni
English Translation: At Ōsaki,
the little beach of the god,
narrow though it be,
even the hundred boatmen
never say they pass it by
Meaning: The little beach of the god at Ōsaki is narrow, and yet no one says that even the boatmen of a hundred ships pass it by.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1023

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "One envoy"
The poem says that the little beach of the god at Ōsaki is narrow, yet not even the boatmen of a hundred ships are said to pass it by; left unfinished, it is understood to carry the grief of one who, being sent into exile, cannot stop there but must sail on. The three long poems immediately before it (1019 to 1022) are titled "Three poems, with a short poem, from the time when Lord Isonokami no Otomaro was exiled to the province of Tosa," and date from Tenpyō 11 (739), when Isonokami no Otomaro was banished to Tosa for a crime.
The long poems sing of Otomaro going down to the distant provinces in awe of the sovereign's command, of his wife's prayers to the god of Suminoe for his safe return, and of Otomaro's own grief as he makes offerings at the fearsome pass and follows the long road to Tosa. As their envoy, this poem takes up the little beach at Ōsaki on the sea route along Kii, entrusting the feelings of the voyage to a single scene. Ōsaki is thought to be Ōsaki in Shimotsu, in present-day Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture, in the old province of Kii.
The author is not known. It is uncertain whether the three long poems and this envoy were composed by Otomaro himself or by those around him who sympathized with him. Isonokami no Otomaro was the son of the Minister of the Left Isonokami no Maro. He was exiled to Tosa over an affair with Kume no Wakame, the widow of Fujiwara no Umakai, and was later pardoned, rising to the rank of Middle Counselor.

The first line, "At Ōsaki," is a place name in Kii, fixing a particular point on the sea route of exile.
In the second line, "the little beach of the god," the "o-" of "obama" is a prefix meaning small. Crowned with the name of the god, the beach is shown to be a place where boatmen stop to pray.
The third line, "narrow though it be," ends with the concessive particle "-domo." While admitting the smallness of the beach, it turns in the lower half to the fact that people nonetheless stop there.
The fourth line, "even the hundred boatmen," means the many people aboard many ships, "hundred" expressing a great number.
The final line, "never say they pass it by," ends with "-naku ni," a nominalized form of the negative "zu" followed by "ni," which breaks off in an exclamatory concessive and leaves lingering the lament of one who cannot stop there.
Source: Manyoshu
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