Kanato ni shi hito no kitateba yonaka ni mo mi wa tana shirazu idete zo aikeru

金門にし人の来立てば夜中にも
身はたな知らず出でてぞ逢ひける

Roma-ji: Kanato ni shi hito no kitateba yonaka ni mo mi wa tana shirazu idete zo aikeru
English Translation: When at her gate
a man would come and stand,
even at midnight,
thinking nothing of herself,
she would go out and meet him.
Meaning: Whenever a man came and stood at her gate, even in the middle of the night she would go out to meet him, with no thought for herself.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1739

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "A poem on the maiden Tamana of Sue in Kazusa, with tanka"; envoy
The poem tells how, whenever a man came to her gate, the maiden Tamana would go out to meet him even at midnight, heedless of herself. It sums up in brief the image, drawn in the long poem, of a beautiful girl who yielded to all.
This is the envoy to the long poem 1738 in this book. The long poem tells the legend of Tamana, a beauty of Sue District in Kazusa (around present-day Kimitsu and Futtsu, Chiba), whose charm bewildered passersby and neighbors alike.
The author, Takahashi no Mushimaro, was a poet of the early Nara period who is thought to have served under Fujiwara no Umakai when Umakai was governor of Hitachi. He excelled at long poems on local legends and the landscape of the eastern provinces. This poem is taken from the Mushimaro Collection, which is thought to consist mainly of his own works.

The first line, "when at her gate," includes the emphatic shi.
The second line, "a man would come and stand," uses the realis form with ba to express a recurring condition.
The third line, "even at midnight," stresses the hour.
The fourth line, "thinking nothing of herself," uses the adverb tana, "entirely."
The final line, "she would go out and meet him," pairs zo with the attributive keru of the past tense in a kakari-musubi, telling the story as something heard.
Author: Takahashi no Mushimaro (from the Mushimaro Collection)
Source: Manyoshu
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