Yama takaku kawa no se kiyoshi momoyo made kamushimi yukamu ōmiyadokoro

山高く川の瀬清し百代まで
神しみゆかむ大宮所

Roma-ji: Yama takaku kawa no se kiyoshi momoyo made kamushimi yukamu ōmiyadokoro
English Translation: Mountains stand so high,
the river shallows run pure;
for a hundred ages
it shall grow ever more divine,
this the site of the great palace
Meaning: The mountains are high, the river shallows pure. For a hundred ages it will grow ever more sacred: this site of the great palace.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1052

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two envoys"
The poem praises the eternity of the capital, saying that with its high mountains and pure river shallows, the site of the great palace will grow ever more sacred for a hundred ages. It is the second of the two envoys to the long poem immediately before it (1050), "A poem in praise of the new capital at Kuni," and it takes up the long poem's praise of mountains and river, "the river is near, so the sound of its shallows is pure; the mountains are near, so the birdsong echoes," condensing it into a brief parallel phrase.
The Kuni capital was established by Emperor Shōmu in Yamashiro Province at the end of Tenpyō 12 (740), and the site of its palace lies in what is now Kamo-chō, Kizugawa City, Kyoto Prefecture. Mika-no-hara is the plain of that area, and Futagi is the name of the land around the palace.
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.

Praising a palace site by the height of its mountains and the purity of its river follows the same pattern as Yamabe no Akahito's Yoshino poem, 1005 of this book, "the mountains are high, so clouds trail; the river is swift, so the sound of its shallows is pure," and Ōtomo no Yakamochi's poem in praise of the Kuni capital, 1037, "when I see how clear its mountains and rivers are." The final line's "great palace site" is also shared with the final line of Kasa no Kanamura's Yoshino poem, 921. On the other hand, this capital, praised as lasting a hundred ages, is later sung of in 1060 as "the Kuni capital has fallen to ruin," forming a composition in which praise and ruin are reversed.
The first line, "Mountains stand so high," presents the mountains surrounding the capital.
The second line, "the river shallows run pure," pairs with the first line, and the sense breaks here, making this a poem with a pause after the second line.
The third line, "for a hundred ages," means until a hundred ages hence, a way of wishing for the capital's eternity. It praises the capital on the same scale as "even for a hundred ages" in the later poem 1055.
The fourth line, "it shall grow ever more divine," means "it will grow more sacred." "Kamushimu" means to become venerable and godlike with age, and "-mu" is conjectural.
The final line, "this the site of the great palace," names the site of the capital, and by ending on a noun it presents the object of praise last. It is the same word as in the fourth line of the preceding poem, 1051.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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