Te ni toru ga kara ni wasuru to ama no iishi koiwasuregai koto ni shi arikeri

手に取るがからに忘ると海人の言ひし
恋忘れ貝言にしありけり

Roma-ji: Te ni toru ga kara ni wasuru to ama no iishi koiwasuregai koto ni shi arikeri
English Translation: "Just take it in hand
and at once you will forget,"
the fisherman said—
but the shell of love's forgetting
was nothing but a name
Meaning: "Just take it in your hand and you'll forget," the fisherman told me—but the love-forgetting shell was nothing but a name.
Commentary: Book Seven Miscellaneous Poems 1197

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Composed on Journeys"
Trusting the fisherman's word that simply holding it would make one forget the pain of love, the poet took up a love-forgetting shell, yet his longing did not fade in the least; he laments that it was nothing but a name. The depth of his longing for a loved one and for home is shown through the shell's failure.
It shares its last line with poem 1149 in this book, a poem with the same idea of lamenting that the love-forgetting shell was only a name. It is regarded as coming from the Old Collection. The poet is unknown.

The first line, "Just take it in hand," means "merely taking it."
In the second line, "kara ni" means "as soon as": "the moment you hold it, you forget."
The third line, "the fisherman said," has an extra syllable.
The fourth line names the shell said to make one forget love, which also appears in poems 1147 and 1149.
The final line, "was nothing but a name," is the same as the last line of poem 1149.
Source: Manyoshu
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