Izumigawa yuku se no mizu no taeba koso ōmiyadokoro utsuroi yukame

泉川行く瀬の水の絶えばこそ
大宮所移ろひ行かめ

Roma-ji: Izumigawa yuku se no mizu no taeba koso ōmiyadokoro utsuroi yukame
English Translation: Izumi River:
of its running shallows, the water—
only should it fail
would this site of the great palace
ever shift and move away
Meaning: Only if the water of the flowing shallows of the Izumi River were to run dry would this site of the great palace ever pass away.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1054

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Five envoys"
The poem says that only if the water flowing in the shallows of the Izumi River were to run dry would this palace site ever move away, praising the capital by implying that since the river never ceases, neither will the capital shift. The long poem immediately before it (1053) is the second of the two "poems in praise of the new capital at Kuni"; it praises the palace of Futagi with scenes of wooded mountains, the pure sound of the rushing shallows, the bush warbler of spring and the stag of autumn, and closes with "the great palace site that shall not change even for a hundred ages." This is the first of its five envoys, restating the long poem's close through the ceaseless flow of the Izumi River.
The Izumi River is the present-day Kizu River, and the Kuni capital was laid out on both sides of it.
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.

The conceit that the palace will not change as long as the river's flow does not cease is the same as in Yamabe no Akahito's Yoshino poem, 1005 of this book, "only if this river should run dry would the great palace site ever come to an end," applying to the new capital at Kuni a pattern of praise once directed at the Yoshino detached palace. On the other hand, this poem's "shift and move away" later becomes reality in 1060, "since the courtiers have moved away," forming a composition in which praise is reversed.
The first line, "Izumi River," names the river flowing through the Kuni capital, opening the poem with it as a symbol of the capital.
The second line, "of its running shallows, the water," means the water of the flowing shallows, showing the river flowing without cease.
The third line, "only should it fail," means "only if it should run dry." The irrealis form plus "ba" makes a hypothetical condition, to which the particle "koso" is added, setting as the condition something that could never happen. The sense breaks here, making this a poem with a pause after the third line.
The fourth line, "would this site of the great palace," names the site of the capital, a word carried over from the preceding pair of envoys (1051 and 1052).
The final line, "ever shift and move away," means "would it move away." The conjectural auxiliary "mu" takes its realis form "me" as the conclusion answering "koso" in the third line, a kakari-musubi construction. "Utsurou" is also the same word as in the final line of 1045, lamenting the ruins of Nara, "when I see it fading."
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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