Nadeshiko wa sakite chirinu to hito wa iedo waga shimeshi no no hana ni arame ya mo

なでしこは咲きて散りぬと人は言へど
我が標めし野の花にあらめやも

Roma-ji: Nadeshiko wa sakite chirinu to hito wa iedo waga shimeshi no no hana ni arame ya mo
English Translation: The pinks, people say,
have bloomed and fallen away,
so they say, and yet
in the field I marked as mine
could those flowers be the ones?
Meaning: People say the pinks have bloomed and fallen, but could those be the flowers of the field I marked as mine? Surely not.
Commentary: Book Eight Summer Love Poems 1510

Headnote: "A poem sent by Ōtomo no Yakamochi to Lady Ki"
People say the pinks have bloomed and fallen, but the poet declares that the flowers of the field he marked as his own could not have fallen. Likening the pinks to Lady Ki, he expresses his trust that whatever the rumors say, her heart could not have changed. The poem stands last among the summer love poems.
The author, Ōtomo no Yakamochi, was a son of Ōtomo no Tabito and an official of the Nara period. He rose to the post of Middle Counselor, is thought to have been closely involved in compiling the Man'yōshū, and left more poems than anyone else in the anthology. The recipient, Lady Ki, was a daughter of Ki no Kahito and is said to have become the wife of Prince Aki.

The first line, with an extra syllable, names the flower that stands for the woman.
The second line, "have bloomed and fallen," is the content of people's rumor.
The third line, with an extra syllable and the concessive "do," means "though people say so."
In the fourth line, "shimu" means to mark something as one's own, here a figure for having made her his love. "The field I marked" also appears in Yamabe no Akahito's 1427 in this book; there it is a field for gathering greens, here a field standing for a lover, so the same words are used in spring and summer.
The final line adds the rhetorical "ya mo" to the conjectural "me," denying: could it be so? Surely not.
Author: Otomo no Yakamochi
Source: Manyoshu
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