Tōzuma shi taga ni ariseba shirazu tomo tazuna no hama no tazune kinamashi

遠妻し多賀にありせば知らずとも
手綱の浜の尋ね来なまし

Roma-ji: Tōzuma shi taga ni ariseba shirazu tomo tazuna no hama no tazune kinamashi
English Translation: If my distant wife
were only here in Taga,
though I knew no way,
like the name of Tazuna beach,
I would seek and come to her.
Meaning: If my faraway wife were here in Taga, I would come seeking her even without knowing the way, as the name of Tazuna beach suggests.
Commentary: Book Nine Miscellaneous Poems 1746

Headnote: "A poem on Tazuna beach"
If his faraway wife lived here in Taga, the speaker says, he would come seeking her even without knowing the way. Drawing on the name of the beach he has reached, he expresses the loneliness of being unable to see her.
Tazuna beach is thought to be in Taga District of Hitachi (around present-day Takahagi, Ibaraki). The poem plays on the similar sounds of tazuna, "reins," and tazune, "seeking," weaving the place name into its thought.
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, "if my distant wife," uses the emphatic shi.
The second line, "were only here in Taga," sets up a counterfactual; some also hear taka, "high," in Taga.
The third line, "though I knew no way," means even without knowing the road.
The fourth line, "like the name of Tazuna beach," leads through its sound to tazune, "seek," in the final line.
The final line, "I would seek and come to her," closes with the counterfactual mashi answering ariseba, revealing that the wife is not there.
Author: Takahashi no Mushimaro (from the Mushimaro Collection)
Source: Manyoshu
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