Futagiyama yamanami mireba momoyo ni mo kawaru mashijiki ōmiyadokoro

布当山山なみ見れば百代にも
変るましじき大宮所

Roma-ji: Futagiyama yamanami mireba momoyo ni mo kawaru mashijiki ōmiyadokoro
English Translation: Mount Futagi—
when I see its range of peaks,
even for a hundred ages
it could never change, I think,
this the site of the great palace
Meaning: When I look upon the ranging peaks of Mount Futagi, I know this site of the great palace will not change even in a hundred ages.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1055

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Five envoys"
The poem praises the eternity of the capital, saying that when one sees the range of Mount Futagi, one knows this palace site will not change even in a hundred ages. 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 second of its five envoys, using the long poem's closing phrase as its own lower verse and repeating the long poem's praise in the envoy.
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.

The phrase running from the third to the final line, "the great palace site that shall not change even for a hundred ages," is identical to the close of the long poem. It also shares the scale of "a hundred ages" and the final line "great palace site" with 1052, "for a hundred ages it shall grow ever more divine, this the site of the great palace." The later poem 1061, "it is the courtiers who have changed," is an expression that reverses this "it could never change."
The first line, "Mount Futagi," names the mountain rising behind the Futagi palace.
The second line, "when I see its range of peaks," makes the unshakable form of the mountain range the ground for the capital's permanence.
The third line, "even for a hundred ages," means until a hundred ages hence, and is the same phrase as in the close of the long poem.
The fourth line, "it could never change, I think," means "it will surely never change." "Mashiji" is an auxiliary expressing negative conjecture, here in its attributive form modifying the final line.
The final line, "this the site of the great palace," names the site of the capital, and by ending on a noun presents the object of praise. It is a word carried on from the three preceding envoys.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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