Kazuki suru ama wa noredomo watatsumi no kokoro shi eneba miyu to iwanaku ni

潜きする海人は告れども海神の
心し得ねば見ゆといはなくに

Roma-ji: Kazuki suru ama wa noredomo watatsumi no kokoro shi eneba miyu to iwanaku ni
English Translation: The fisherman who dives,
though he speaks his prayers aloud,
the sea god of the deep—
since he cannot win his heart,
none can say the pearl is seen
Meaning: The diving fisherman may voice his prayers, but since he cannot win the sea god's heart, no one can say that the pearl will come into view.
Commentary: Book Seven Allegorical Poems 1303

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "On Jewels"
Though the diving fisherman voices his prayers, he cannot win the sea god's heart, so it cannot be said that the pearl comes into view. Continuing the preceding poem, with the sea god as the girl's parent and the fisherman as the suitor, it is taken to lament that however often he asks, he cannot gain the parent's consent and so cannot be said to meet the girl.
It is the fifth poem of the series on jewels and forms a pair with the preceding poem, 1302, taking up its last line, "the fisherman who dives," in its first two lines and answering "he spoke his prayer" with "though he speaks his prayers." According to the left note it comes from the Kakinomoto no Hitomaro Collection.

The first line, "The fisherman who dives," takes up the last line of the preceding poem.
The second line, "though he speaks his prayers aloud," corresponds to "a thousand times he spoke his prayer" in the preceding poem.
The third line, "the sea god of the deep," is the same word as in the first line of the preceding poem and of 1301.
In the fourth line, "since he cannot win his heart," the emphatic "shi" stresses that the parent's consent cannot be gained.
In the final line, "naku ni" is a negative tinged with lament: "none can say it is seen."
Source: Manyoshu
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