Inishie ni arikemu hito mo waga goto ka miwa no hibara ni kazashi orikemu

いにしへにありけむ人も我がごとか
三輪の桧原にかざし折りけむ

Roma-ji: Inishie ni arikemu hito mo waga goto ka miwa no hibara ni kazashi orikemu
English Translation: The people who lived
here in the days of long ago,
did they, like me,
in Miwa's cypress forest
break sprays to deck their hair?
Meaning: Did the people of long ago, like me, break off sprays in the cypress forest of Miwa to wear in their hair?
Commentary: Book Seven Miscellaneous Poems 1118

Headnote: "On Leaves"
Breaking a cypress spray to wear in his hair in the cypress forest of Miwa, the poet wonders whether people of old did just as he does. The feeling of being joined to the ancients by the same act is tinged with longing for those who are gone.
It is a poem under the heading "On Leaves," and with the next poem it sings of the cypress forest of Miwa. The next poem says that the forest droops because "those who have passed" no longer break its sprays, and the two are regarded as a pair mourning the dead.
The left note says, "The two poems above come from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection."

The first line, "The people who lived here in the days of long ago," echoes the first line of poem 1111 in this book, "In the olden days."
In the second line, "kemu" is the past conjectural: "those who must have lived here."
In the third line, "did they, like me," the particle "ka" expresses doubt and is answered by "kemu" in the final line.
The fourth line refers to the cypress forest at the foot of Mount Miwa. With "the cypress hills" of poem 1092 and "the cypress forests of Hatsuse" of poem 1095, cypress forests are sung as famous places. It corresponds to the last line of the next poem, "the cypress wood of Miwa."
The final line, "break sprays to deck their hair?" closes with the attributive "kemu" in response to "ka."
Source: Manyoshu
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