Hama kiyomi ura uruwashimi kamuyo yori chifune no hatsuru ōwada no hama

浜清み浦うるはしみ神代より
千舟の泊つる大和太の浜

Roma-ji: Hama kiyomi ura uruwashimi kamuyo yori chifune no hatsuru ōwada no hama
English Translation: For its beach so pure,
for its bay so lovely fair,
from the age of gods
a thousand ships have anchored—
the beach of Ōwada
Meaning: Because its beach is pure and its bay so lovely, a thousand ships have anchored here since the age of the gods: the beach of Ōwada.
Commentary: Book Six Miscellaneous Poems 1067

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Two envoys"
The poem praises the beach of Ōwada, where, because the beach is pure and the bay lovely, a thousand ships have anchored since the age of the gods. The long poem immediately before it (1065) is titled "A poem composed when passing Minume Bay"; it praises Minume Bay, fixed since the age of the god Yachihoko as a harbor where many ships put in, with scenes of the bay's waves stirring in the morning wind, jewel-weed drifting in on the evening waves, and a beach of pure white sand, and closes with "the pure white beach that will be remembered through a hundred ages." This is the second of its two envoys, taking up the long poem's "since the age of the god" and "the harbor where a hundred ships put in" to praise the harbor's ancient pedigree and beauty.
The beach of Ōwada is said to be the later Ōwada anchorage, a beach around what is now Hyōgo Ward, Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture. This poem is the last poem of Book Six.
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.

This poem at the end of the book answers, with the words "pure" and "from the age of gods," Kasa no Kanamura's Yoshino poem at the opening of the book (907), which praised the Yoshino palace for the purity of the land and its sanctity since the age of the gods: "its mountains and rivers so pure and so clear, surely it was ordained so from the age of the gods." Book Six thus begins with praise of the mountains and rivers of Yoshino and closes with praise of a seaside beach. The third line, "from the age of gods," is also shared with the first line of Yamabe no Akahito's Yoshino poem, 1006, and against the "hundred ships" of the preceding poem, 1066, this poem raises the number to "a thousand ships."
The first line, "For its beach so pure," means "because the beach is pure," "kiyomi" being the -mi construction of "kiyoshi" expressing a reason.
The second line, "for its bay so lovely fair," means "because the bay is beautiful," repeating the same -mi construction as the first line to form a parallel phrase.
The third line, "from the age of gods," means since the ancient age of the gods, taking up the long poem's "since the age of the god Yachihoko" and showing the harbor's ancient lineage.
The fourth line, "a thousand ships have anchored," means that many ships put in here. Enlarging the "hundred ships" of the preceding poem to "a thousand ships," it heightens the sense of a thriving harbor.
The final line, "the beach of Ōwada," ends on a noun, naming the beach to close the poem and bringing Book Six to its end with praise of a place name.
Author: Tanabe no Sakimaro
Source: Manyoshu
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