Tachikawari furuki miyako to narinureba michi no shibakusa nagaku oinikeri

たち変り古き都となりぬれば
道の芝草長く生ひにけり

Roma-ji: Tachikawari furuki miyako to narinureba michi no shibakusa nagaku oinikeri
English Translation: The times having changed,
now it is an ancient capital,
and since it is so,
on the roads the grasses grow
long and rank, I see at last
Meaning: The times have changed and this has become an old capital, and so the grass along the roads has grown long.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1048

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two envoys"
The poem says that because the times have changed and Nara has become an old capital, the grass along the roads has grown long. The long poem immediately before it (1047) is titled "A poem composed in sorrow for the old capital of Nara," and it laments that with the move of the capital to Kuni, the roads once trodden by the courtiers have fallen to ruin, "for neither horses go nor people go." This envoy gathers the ruin of those roads into a single image: grasses grown long.
The twenty-one poems from 1047 through 1067, the last poem of the book, are covered by the closing left note: "The above twenty-one poems appear in the Tanabe no Sakimaro Collection." According to this note they were taken from the Tanabe no Sakimaro Collection, and they are thought to be Sakimaro's own compositions.
The poet, Tanabe no Sakimaro, was a poet of the mid-Nara period; in Tenpyō 20 (748) he served as a clerk of the Office of Sake Brewing and acted as an envoy for the Minister of the Left, Tachibana no Moroe. He is regarded as one of the representative poets of the last phase of the Man'yōshū, carrying on the tradition of ceremonial long poems at court.

Following the three poems of uncertain authorship (1044 through 1046 of this book), poems lamenting the ruin of the Nara capital appear once more. The word "tachikawari" in this poem is shared with the final line of a later envoy mourning the ruined Kuni capital (1061), "it is they who have changed," a correspondence that shows both the Nara capital and the Kuni capital passing through change.
The first line, "The times having changed," refers to the shifting of the age, that is, the moving of the capital.
The second line, "now it is an ancient capital," says that Nara has already become an old capital. Like "old capital" in the title of the long poem, it refers to the former seat of the court.
The third line, "and since it is so," means "because it has become so," the realis form plus "ba" expressing an established condition.
The fourth line, "on the roads the grasses grow," refers to the turf grass growing on the roads. It takes up the long poem's "the roads the courtiers trod smooth as they came and went," pointing to roads no longer trodden by anyone.
The final line, "long and rank, I see at last," means "how long they have grown." "Keri" expresses the exclamation of sudden realization, echoing "how it has fallen to ruin" at the close of the long poem.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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